FAA Establishes In-House Investigations Office

The FAA has created its own version of an internal affairs office with the Office of Investigations and Professional Responsibility. The new department is charged with ensuring all FAA employees straighten up and fly right. "We protect the national airspace system (NAS) and the flying public by initiating and conducting administrative investigations and special inquiries on FAA employees and contractors suspected of violating various FAA orders, regulations and policy," the agency says in its online description of the new function. The new office also "helps protect whistleblowers and others raising safety concerns," according to a statement issued Tuesday.

But the office also has some pretty far-reaching and somewhat ambiguous roles that seem to venture outside the FAA's cozy confines. "We also research, coordinate and establish policy and standards for investigations, as well as conduct technical investigations and manage the Agency's Insider Threat, Defensive Counter-Intelligence, International Travel Security, Cyber Counter-Intelligence, e-Discovery and the Digital Forensics programs," the agency says. The creation of the office was mandated by the Aircraft Safety and Certification Reform Act, which grew out of safety issues and the in-house pressures that resulted from the investigation into the 737 MAX certification process.