Safe Airspace for Americans Act
The Safe Airspace for Americans Act would require the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to establish standardized procedures for the collection, reporting, analysis, and investigation of incidents involving unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) encountered by aviation personnel and in the national airspace. Within 180 days of enactment, the FAA must develop a framework to synchronize data across agencies, store and integrate information, and enable timely investigations that include archiving pilot-controller communications, radar data, and air traffic management data. The bill also directs interagency coordination (including DoD, DNI, NASA, DHS, NOAA, NSF, and DOE) and requires sharing incident data with the Department of Defense’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). It prohibits using UAP reports for enforcement actions, except where accidents or criminal offenses are involved, and calls for a public communications plan to reduce stigma around reporting. The act provides options for how reports are collected (through the existing Aviation Safety Reporting Program or a separate UAP-focused system), and it specifies protections for pilots’ medical and airman-certification processes, as well as prohibitions on reprisals against federal employees and airline personnel who report UAP encounters. It also defines UAP and related terms and emphasizes the sense of Congress that encounters should be reported and stigma reduced.
Key Points
- 1Establish standardized, synchronized procedures within 180 days to collect, report, and analyze UAP incidents, including any adverse physiological effects and impacts on flight instruments.
- 2Create or adapt a reporting system (existing Aviation Safety Reporting Program or a separate UAP-only system) with data fields describing the object and its apparent motion (kinematics); allow submission via electronic flight bag if safe and not disruptive.
- 3Require timely investigations and archiving of relevant data (pilot-controller communications, radar, and air traffic management data) to support analysis; share reports with the DoD’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office.
- 4Prohibit using UAP reports for enforcement actions, protect medical and certification records from being affected by UAP reporting, and shield reporters from reprisals in both government and airline contexts.
- 5Implement a public communications strategy to engage the public, encourage reporting, and reduce stigma; provide clear definitions of UAP, transmedium objects, and submerged objects that could be related to airborne phenomena.