An enlightened safety program has been in use by the FAA in partnership with NASA for nearly 50 years. The voluntary and confidential Aviation Safety and Reporting System (ASRS) has been a boon to air safety. It was born out of the 1974 crash of a TWA jet on approach to Dulles in bad weather, where the jet met up with the terrain of Mt. Weather as a result of at-best ambiguous ATC language and definitely imprecise instrument flight procedures. The program provides for pilots, controllers, mechanics and others to make confidential reports to the ASRS within NASA, insulating the reports from the sometimes draconian regulation enforcement arms of the FAA, and thereby providing a steady stream of reports that highlight aviation safety issues in nearly real-time.
The “carrot” enticing those in the industry to submit voluntary reports is that in many if not most cases, the reporting person can’t be subject to an FAA enforcement sanction (e.g., suspension or revocation of a certificate) even if a regulation has been broken. If the report is made within 10 days of the event, the action is inadvertent and not deliberate, and the action is not criminal, there can be a finding of a violation but no penalty can be assessed. This immunity can only be used once every five years.