Page 1 GAO-12-306R Status of NTSB Recommendations

United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548

January 6, 2012

 

The Honorable John D. Rockefeller IV 

Chairman 

The Honorable Kay Bailey Hutchison 

Ranking Member

Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation 

United States Senate

The Honorable John L. Mica 

Chairman 

The Honorable Nick J. Rahall, II 

Ranking Member 

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 

House of Representatives

Subject: National Transportation Safety Board’s Implementation of GAO 

Recommendations

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigates every civil aviation 

accident in the United States and selected accidents involving other transportation 

modes, determines the probable causes of these accidents, makes recommendations to 

address safety issues identified during accident investigations, performs transportation 

safety studies, and operates a Training Center for NTSB investigators and other 

transportation safety professionals. NTSB is a relatively small federal agency with about 

400 staff and a fiscal year 2011 budget of about $98 million. From 2006 through 2008, 

we made 21 recommendations to NTSB aimed at improving its management, 

information technology, accident investigation criteria, safety studies, and Training 

Center use. In January 2010, we reported that NTSB had fully implemented 9 of our 21 

recommendations and made significant progress in implementing the remaining 12 

recommendations.1 NTSB’s 2006 reauthorization legislation included language that 

called for us to annually evaluate NTSB’s programs, operations, and activities.2

 As 

agreed with your committees, this report evaluates NTSB’s progress in implementing 

our remaining 12 recommendations as of December 2011. 

To determine the status of NTSB’s implementation of our remaining 12 

recommendations, we reviewed and analyzed documents obtained from NTSB since 

January 2010 on the actions NTSB officials have taken to address our 

recommendations. We also spoke with NTSB officials about these actions. 

 

1

GAO, National Transportation Safety Board: Issues Related to the 2010 Reauthorization, GAO-10-

366T (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 27, 2010). 2

The National Transportation Safety Board Reauthorization Act of 2006, Pub. L. No. 109-443, § 5, 

120 Stat. 3297, 3299, adding § 1138 to title 49 U.S.C. 
Page 2 GAO-12-306R Status of NTSB Recommendations

We conducted this performance audit from October 2011 to January 2012 in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards 

require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to 

provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit 

objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our 

findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.

NTSB Has Implemented All of Our Recommendations Made Since 2006

NTSB has fully implemented all of the 21 recommendations we have made to the 

agency since 2006. After assessing NTSB’s progress since our 2010 report, we 

conclude that NTSB has now fully implemented the 12 recommendations not previously 

closed. 

Among the actions NTSB took since January 2010 are the following:

• developed a strategic training plan that is aligned with its revised strategic plan, 

• established a diversity task force and management development programs to 

address diversity management issues,

• deployed an agencywide document management system that improved the 

efficiency of its process for closing recommendations,

• implemented an accounting system that tracks the amount of time employees 

spend on each investigation to allow better management of agency resources, 

and

• limited users’ ability to load software or modify NTSB workstations to reduce risk 

to NTSB computers and internal network.

All 21 recommendations and their implementation status are listed in figure 1. 
Page 3 GAO-12-306R Status of NTSB Recommendations

Figure 1: Implementation Status of GAO’s Recommendations to NTSB, as of December 2011
Page 4 GAO-12-306R Status of NTSB Recommendations

Agency Comments

We provided NTSB a draft copy of this report for review and comment and we received 

written comments from the Chairman of NTSB, which are reprinted in enclosure I. In its 

written comments, NTSB agreed with our characterization of the progress it had made in 

implementing our recommendations.

---------------------------------------- 

We are sending copies of this report to the Chairman of NTSB, other congressional 

committees, and interested parties. In addition, this report will be available at no charge 

on the GAO website at http://www.gao.gov. 

If you or your staffs have any questions regarding this report, please contact me at (202) 

512-2834 or dillinghamg@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional 

Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. Key 

contributors to this report were Cathy Colwell (Assistant Director), Andy Clinton, Fred 

Evans, Bert Japikse, Elizabeth Eisenstadt, Mary Marshall, Sara Ann Moessbauer, Travis 

Thomson, and Jack Warner. 

Gerald L. Dillingham, Ph. D. 

Director, Physical Infrastructure Issues 

Enclosure 
Page 5 GAO-12-306R Status of NTSB Recommendations

Enclosure I: Comments from the National Transportation Safety Board

(540236)
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