A banner posted on the FAA’s popular preliminary accident and incident notices page as late as Thursday afternoon told visitors the service will be discontinued at the end of the year, but actual human beings at the FAA have told AVweb otherwise. The site provides preliminary information, updated daily, regarding the most recent aircraft accidents. It maintains the information in a rolling database covering the preceding 10 days. The banner sparked a few emails to AVweb, which prompted our emails to the FAA. Responses from contacts there unequivocally stated that the banner message was posted in error.
AVweb brought the service termination message to the attention of FAA Deputy Assistant Administrator for Public Affairs Laura Brown, who responded plainly. “That’s wrong. Our web team is on top of this and that will not happen. I’ll get that pulled off the page. It IS used extensively.” In other words, regardless of the posted message, the FAA says don’t worry about losing access to the preliminary accident and incident notices page. As of Thursday, night, the termination message was removed.
