Monitoring Flight Schools

9/11 made it obvious that we had to better monitor foreigners who were attending flight schools in this country.  And there are a lot of them.   From January 2006 through September 2011, more than 25,000 foreign nationals had applied for Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) airman certificates (pilot’s licenses), indicating they had completed flight training.  We don't know how many had learned something about flying (like not being interested in learning how to land a plane) but did not apply for a pilot's license.

We established a program (the Alien Flight Student Program (AFSP)) to vet foreign flight student applicants.  But, the GAO found this program to be wanting.   The Transportation Safety Agency (TSA) and Immigration and Customs (ICE) have devised a procedure to improve vetting.  However, the procedure has a few problems: it does not specify desired outcomes and time frames, or assign individuals with responsibility for fully instituting the program. Basically, it has a plan but no way to implement it or measure its effectiveness.