The TSA has issued Guidance for required recurrent Flight School Security Awareness (FSSA) training of flight instructors and flight school employees. The FSSA training applies to all active flight and ground instructors, whether independent or employed by a flight school, and to all flight school employees who have direct contact with flight students. You can find more information on the training in my article on the subject here.
The Guidance provides a way for those required to comply with the recurrent training requirement of 49 C.F.R. § 1552.23(d). The recurrent training is required annually, but when the end of the first year following the effective date of the regulation rolled around and the TSA had still not issued guidance as to what the recurrent training must include, TSA issued an exemption that extended the compliance date for the first recurrent training to eighteen months. Now the TSA has finally issued guidance for flight schools to follow in implementing a recurrent training program.
According to the Guidance, recurrent training must include review and documentation of the following: (1) Any new security measures or procedures implemented; (2) Any security incidents at the flight school or airport, and any lessons learned as a result of such incidents; (3) Any new threats posed by, or incidents involving, general aviation aircraft contained on the TSA Web site; and (4) Any new TSA guidelines or recommendations concerning the security of general aviation aircraft, airports, or flight schools.
The Guidance’s 11 pages contain more details regarding specific tasks to be completed in connection with the four areas listed above. If you are implementing a recurrent training program or you want to confirm that an existing recurrent training program is consistent with these items, you should review the Guidance in detail.
