New Burmese Sanctions Include Sky Aviator Company

November 14, 2022 by Leave a comment

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) is issuing new sanctions against Burmese people and entities, including a business known as Sky Aviator Company.

The new sanctions are scheduled to be published tomorrow, but the sanction orders were effective as of November 8th, 2022.

OFAC sanctions typically prohibit all U.S. persons from engaging in transactions with the blocked parties. If you have a potential transaction with a blocked person or entity (blocked under OFAC sanctions), then you typically need to obtain an OFAC license (or identify an applicable OFAC general license) before you may complete the transaction.

As always, we recommend carefully performing export due diligence on every export transaction. The sanctions lists change almost every day, and many aviation companies are subject to U.S. sanctions. If you are not sure how to perform this due diligence, then we strongly recommend watching our export videos through ASA’s Webinar Series. These videos are free to ASA members and available at a nominal charge to non-members. The on-demand ASA export webinars include:

  • Export Training
  • Export Compliance – A Step-By-Step Approach (Part One: OFAC)
  • Export Compliance – A Step-By-Step Approach (Part Two: BIS)
  • Export Compliance – Licensing and Exceptions: Jason’s Favorite Licensing Exceptions (Part Three)
  • Exporting Defense Material and Complying with the ITAR (Part Four)
  • Exporting Successfully in a Challenging Global Environment (by Elena Mendez, Regional Director, The Export-Import Bank of the United States)

 

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The Importance of Accurate Training Logs

May 11, 2020 by Leave a comment

FAA has proposed a 1.29 million dollar civil penalty against against the City of Chicago Department of Aviation.  The Department is accused of falsifying airport firefighter training logs.

There is an important lesson to be learned from this civil penalty.  While the ASA community may not include firefighters, we do have mandatory training, including hazmat training for hazmat employees.  Falsifying the training logs can yield a very expensive civil penalty, and a lot of bad publicity.

We offer low-cost hazmat certification training (open to anyone).  Also, ASA members can also access free hazmat recognition training for non-shipping staff (a video from the ASA webinar series).  For a link to the hazmat recognition video, ASA members can send an email to ASA and they will forward a link to the session recording and a copy of the presentation.

ASA, MARPA and AFRA have also been offering free webinars for members. They have been providing training on variety of useful subjects every Tuesday and Thursday in order to keep skills sharp for the industry.

The FAA’s Press release describes the civil penalty allegation against the City of Chicago Department of Aviation:

The FAA alleges that between April and August 2019, three firefighters at Chicago O’Hare International Airport were assigned to a High Reach Extendable Turret vehicle for a total of 18 shifts when they had not completed required training on operating the turret. One of the firefighters, a lieutenant, falsified 13 training-log entries to make it appear he had completed the training, the FAA alleges.

Additionally, a captain at Chicago Midway International Airport was assigned to a vehicle for two shifts when she had not completed required recurrent training, the FAA alleges. That firefighter also accessed the airfield during nine shifts when she was not properly badged or under proper escort.

The FAA also alleges the City of Chicago Department of Aviation failed to ensure that the Fire Department maintained required training records.

Note: this FAA press release was issued before the formal response from the City of Chicago Department of Aviation, so they may have defenses to the allegations that are not reflected in the FAA’s notice document.  The Chicago Tribune reported that the City of Chicago Department of Aviation released a statement on this issue:

“Upon learning of these serious allegations, CDA immediately began working with the FAA and CFD to initiate a series of actions, including leadership changes and the retraining of ARFF personnel to ensure all firefighters have the proper training and certifications to operate at the airports,” the department said. “Additionally, CFD training methods and recordkeeping practices have been overhauled to ensure those qualifications are tracked properly. This was all completed in 2019.”

[this statement was not on the City of Chicago Department of Aviation press release listing as of this morning]

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FAA Gears Up for Covid-19: What Does This Mean for Distributors and their DARs?

March 25, 2020 by Leave a comment

Ali Bahrami hosted a teleconference yesterday afternoon and invited industry leaders to discuss the FAA ongoing work to support aviation safety during the Covid-19 crisis.  Bahrami is the FAA’s Associate Administrator for Aviation Safety but he used to be with AIA so he understands the industry perspective, and the importance of transparency in government.

Bahrami expects the situation to impact the FAA for about 60-90 days, and has been planning accordingly. The FAA expects to issue new policy statements and extensions in order to facilitate aviation business while maintaining aviation safety.  They expect the first of the new guidance documents to be released by the end of this week.

Risk-Based Approach

Last week and this week the FAA has been working on using a risk-based approach to identify and categorize the tasks the FAA performs.  The FAA has used this approach to distinguish which tasks can be delayed and which ones must be accomplished as planned in order to preserve the expected level of safety.  Among those that must be performed as planned, they are investigating how best to ensure health and safety when they perform the tasks.  Some examples include:

  • The FAA is publishing guidance on how technologies can be used to perform remote oversight during the Covid-19 crisis;
  • Expiring class one medical certificates will be extended for 90 days so that holders will not have to visit aviation medical examiners during the Covid-19 crisis;
  • The FAA is investigating ways to mitigate the health dangers of Covid-19 in confined spaces, like health risks to to inspectors, trainers and students in simulators;

The FAA has been coordinating its plans with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in order to help ensure that the FAA’s practices are consistent with those of the rest of the world, and will not adversely affect acceptance of  US aviation products in the rest of the world.

FAA Aircraft Certification Service

Earl Lawrence is the Executive Director of the FAA’s Aircraft Certification Service. He’s also a former trade association guy and an old friend – having worked for EAA for many years.  Lawrence joined the call to talk about FAA oversight of design and production, but he also answered questions about DARs, which is an important issue for ASA members.

DAR Extensions and Privileges

Lawrence explained that he remembered our concerns about DARs, and that the FAA is already working on the guidance for them.  The current guidance for the Covid-19 crisis will be modeled on the approach that the FAA adopted during the last government shutdown.

During the last government shutdown, ASA worked with Lawrence on protocols for extending DARs’ recurrent training and extension requirements.  Under those protocols, those who needed training during the shutdown would be able to wait and get the training after the shutdown; and those whose authority expired during the shutdown would be permitted to operate until after the end of the shutdown (the guidance included a window of time after the shutdown, because of the recognition that the FAA would not be able to process everything immediately, after the shutdown ended). This should be the model for treatment of DAR renewal and training during the Covid-19 crisis.

The new designee guidance is being developed jointly with the Flight Standards Service to make sure that all DARs are covered.  He expects it to be issued next week.

Remote Witnessing and 8130-3 Tags

Lawrence explained that his office is also working on how best to use technology during Covid-19 to accomplish their oversight goals.

In fact, his office is working on two pieces of guidance – one on deviation authority to permit use of remote technologies to carry out FAA oversight responsibilities and one on using technology to accomplish testing, oversight, witnessing and certification in FAA projects.  Lawrence expects both of these documents to be in draft form by today, and hopes to have them issued by early next week.

He expects that their ideas will be turned into guidance that can be used by FAA designees as well.  He specifically mentioned using remote technologies for issuing 8130-3 tags during the Covid-19 crisis.

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