General aviation appears headed toward its safest year yet in 2017, FAA Administrator Michael Huerta reported at the fifth-annual General Aviation Safety Summit. However, in prepared remarks, Huerta expressed concern that the industry still has much work in front of it, particularly in the area of ADS-B installations, with as many as one-third of the FAA rebate incentives left unclaimed.

FAA and industry leaders began meeting annually at the safety summit to develop strategies that tackled the GA fatal accident rate.

“I’m happy to report we’re seeing results from these efforts,” Huerta told the group. “We’re still finalizing the numbers, but it looks like 2017 will end up being our safest year yet.” The fatal accident rate is declining, “far below our target rate of one per 100,000 flight hours. This is a significant accomplishment,” he added.

Huerta credited a multi-faceted approach for the progress that spans across regulatory, technological and educational efforts. Among the efforts he cited are the rewrite of Part 23 and a streamlined approval process for non-required safety enhancing equipment. The actions will facilitate the incorporation of new and innovative safety technologies on the general aviation fleet, he said.

Huerta further pointed to a data-driven approach taken by the GA Joint Steering Committee, which was “revitalized” in 2011. This enabled the industry to zero in on loss of control, which led to a streamlined process for getting angle-of-attack indicators into cockpits, he said. It also has led to a “Fly Safe” educational campaign. “Together, we’ve reached millions of our social media followers with information on how to avoid loss-of-control accidents,” he said.

But he stressed a need for vigilance and made a push for increased GA engagement of the FAA Aviation Safety Information Analysis and Sharing (ASIAS) program. “We need to continue using data to identify trends and direct our efforts where they’re needed most.” Also needed is a focus on the development of consensus standards to support the new Part 23 implementation.

And, he made another appeal for ADS-B equipage. He thanked the industry leaders for promoting the year-long ADS-B rebate program. “Unfortunately, only about two-thirds of the rebates were reserved before the program ended in September,” he said, adding that just under 31,000 GA aircraft currently have ADS-B installations that comply with the mandate. “To put it simply: we’re just not where we want to be a little more than two years out from the deadline.”