The United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) conducted International Aviation Safety Assessment (IASA) on the Ethiopian Civil Aviation Authority (ECAA), according to The Reporter.

An FAA team of experts lead by John Barbagallo, chief inspector, came to Addis Ababa last August to audit the ECAA. The experts spent five days assessing the authority’s working procedures and the qualifications of its experts.

The experts have identified 36 findings, mostly related to the availability of certified personnel, according to the Reporter. They gave ECAA two months to correct the deficiencies.

FAA audits of a country's aviation regulatory body are prerequisite for airline of that country to fly to the US. Ethiopian Airlines started flying to the US in 1998 after ECAA was certified by the FAA as category 1, according to The Reporter.

FAA’s experts came back to Addis Ababa last month to check the progress made by the ECAA. The authority has correct most of the gaps identified by the FAA finding, according to Wossenyeleh Hunegnaw (Col.), director of the ECAA, and the experts were satisfied with the improvements made by the authority and the government.

The FAA will announce the result of the assessment this and an official letter will be sent to the authority soon.

Source: The Reporter