National Transportation Safety Board chairman Robert Sumwalt believes his agency will increasingly turn to data use for its safety activities but he does not expect it will have a role in monitoring individual operator’s data in real-time.

“We are trying to get more savvy on [data],” said Sumwalt during last week's NATA Aviation Leadership Conference. “We have not been out there mining data in the past. We are going to be postured to mine data more to look for trends.” He noted other organizations are already engaged in such activity, such as the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association’s Air Safety Institute, which examines trends for data and reports those findings in its Joseph T. Nall report.

He also believes access to data from flight data monitoring equipment is “very valuable” to the agency’s investigations, adding he is a strong proponent of flight operational quality assurance (FOQA) programs.

Having said that, Sumwalt added the NTSB will not mine for real-time data. “That is not what our congressional mandate is. That is not going to be a function of NTSB,” he said. “But from personal experience, I think data should be mined and monitored in-house.” He added that data-sharing programs such as ASIAS are helpful, but it is not the role of government to look at an individual operator’s data.

Sumwalt also last week reported improving aviation safety statistics overall, with the number of accidents in 2017 down by 19 to 1,316 and the number of fatalities declining from 412 in 2016 to 350 last year. Air taxis were in involved in 43 accidents, resulting in 15 fatalities.

Reiterating the strong safety improvements in Part 121, which resulted in no fatal accidents in a nine-year period until the Southwest Airlines fatal accident on April 17, Sumwalt said concerns still remain for business aviation. Accidents involving professionally flown Part 91 and 135 operations produced 77 fatalities during the same nine-year period.

He agreed with remarks presented by NTSB’s Office of Aviation Safety director John DeLisi at the recent Bombardier Safety Standdown that business aviation could benefit in three key areas: safety management systems, flight-data monitoring programs, and mandatory controlled flight into terrain prevention training.