Let’s Get Social!

How the FAA Engages Citizens through Social Media

By Paul Cianciolo, FAA Safety Briefing Magazine Associate Editor

If you’re not on social media, do you even exist? Or, more to the point, are you the safest pilot you can be if you are not on social media? One of the most significant benefits of using social media is connecting directly with your fellow pilots as well as government and industry members. Here at the FAA, we aim to build trust as you get to know us on social media and understand how we provide the safest, most efficient aerospace system in the world.

Our national airspace system has a lot of different players, and not every social media channel is for everyone. We aim to meet you wherever you like to be. Here’s a closer look at the platforms and channels the FAA uses.

The most prominent channels boasting nearly a half million followers each are the @FAA accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and @FAANews on Twitter. The FAA’s YouTube channel has more than 50,000 video subscribers. Content shared on these platforms runs the gamut of all users — from pilots and mechanics to drone operators, to the flying public and the entire aviation community.

✅ Pro Tip

You can adjust your personal settings to ensure you get all the content from a social media channel. On a Facebook page, click “following” in the menu on a desktop or “manage follow settings” in-app to change content frequency. On Twitter, click the “ 🔔+” icon to get notifications. Click the “🔔” icon on a LinkedIn page to change content frequency. On the Instagram app, click “following” to change content frequency and the “🔔” icon to get notifications.

Several video playlists are valuable to our aviation community on the FAA YouTube channel. To find all the available playlists, click “created playlists” under the Playlists tab.

The FAA’s “From the Flight Deck” video series uses aircraft-mounted cameras to capture runway and taxiway footage and combines them with diagrams and visual graphics to identify hot spots and other safety-sensitive items at more than 100 airports around the country.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5vHkqHi51DSNpsBC8nb8Q8gFcGVmWhGA

Another, “57 Seconds to Safer Flying,” is an instructional video series that provides brief and informative overviews of critical safety subjects, such as a pilot’s fitness to fly or aeronautical decision-making. The #FlySafe topics covered help mitigate the most common causes of general aviation (GA) accidents and follow the safety enhancements developed by the General Aviation Joint Safety Committee (GAJSC). These are just a couple of the playlists available to explore.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5vHkqHi51DQdF_PXKQT7uJUPd4UzlxNS

✅ Pro Tip

Click the name of any playlist to see all the videos in that playlist. You can also save a playlist by clicking the “+” icon.

The FAA Safety Briefing magazine’s Twitter channel @FAASafetyBrief is part of our official safety policy voice for non-commercial GA. We share stories from this magazine, the FAA Safety Team (FAASTeam), and other relevant content to the GA community. This content includes automated tweets from FAASafety.gov about TFR notices, GPS interference warnings, VIP movements, and airport-specific information. We also accept direct messages or DMs and strive to answer as best we can.

https://twitter.com/FAASafetyBrief

If you are on Facebook, joining our General Aviation Safety Facebook group is a must for traditional and remote pilots, mechanics, and others in the GA community. The FAASTeam moderates the nearly 16,000 members of the group to ensure content stays on topic and comments don’t get out of hand. The number one group rule is intertwined with the FAA’s Compliance Program — that the FAA will not use safety discussions in the Facebook group for any enforcement action. We want an open and transparent exchange of information with mutual cooperation and trust between the FAA and the GA community. This is a great forum to learn from your fellow aviators and avoid the same mistakes others have made.

Our goal is to reduce the nation’s general aviation (GA) accident rate by building a community on Facebook where safety principles and practices can be shared through positive public engagement between the FAA Safety Team (FAASTeam) and GA community.

✅ Pro Tip

Make sure to fill out all membership questions when requesting to join a Facebook group.

If you are a drone operator or remote pilot, make sure to follow the @FAADroneZone on Facebook or Twitter, which has around 10,000 followers each.

For those who like to sit back and listen rather than read, check out The Air Up There podcast, which is for people curious about the wide world of aviation. Join the FAA as we nerd out about the future of flight, drones, and ways to make the National Airspace System safer, smarter, and more efficient. You can subscribe to the podcast through Apple, Stitcher, and Google.

For those who like to deep-dive into aviation topics, our blog, Cleared for Takeoff, is hosted on Medium. Articles include the voices, stories, and news from the FAA, along with the articles from the FAA Safety Briefing magazine and educational content from the FAASTeam. Follow us there to stay up-to-date on great reading.

Cleared for Takeoff

✅ Pro Tip

While reading Medium content, select a snippet of text to highlight, share, or comment on a particular section. Click the “play” icon at the top of a story to listen to the article instead of reading it.

All these platforms open up new doors to connect with us. We encourage comments and replies, which we do read. We strive to improve GA safety by being good aviation citizens through social media engagement. Join us!

Here are some helpful reader comments we’ve received on social media:

Jake’s response to “Aircraft Mufflers — The Hidden Danger You Need to Know” on Medium

This was maybe 30 years ago. I was flying Eastward across the Appalachian mountains. I knew the weather at my destination was clear. I climbed above a cloud layer that later became an undercast with tops at 9000. My next VFR cruising altitude was 11,500. I filed a glowing PIREP. … By the time I got to the airport I had a splitting headache. I was exhausted when I landed. I taxied up to my parking space and then shut everything down. I wrote up the stuff I needed to in the log. By then I was so exhausted that I just set the parking brake and slept in the airplane for half an hour. … That’s when the alarm bells went off with both of us. CHECK THE MUFFLER AND HEAT EXCHANGER. Sure enough, it was not in good shape. If I had not been in good physical condition at the time, I might not be here writing this.

Andrews’s comment to “Welcome Back” about the FAA’s Portable Reduced Oxygen Training Enclosure (PROTE) system on Facebook

Did this at the Mooney Safety summit a few years back. REALLY interesting and I am so glad I did. Fascinating how you can clearly hear what is being asked of you, and THINK you are performing the task perfectly…..NOPE, when you put the O2 back on, you have a load of squiggles all over the paper. I recommend this to EVERY pilot.

John’s comment to “Surfing the Digital Atmosphere on Facebook

I’m wondering: maybe it’s not a lack of weather knowledge that’s the problem, but a lack of knowledge of how to deal with — fly in/handle — adverse weather.

Mimi’s comment to “(Don’t) Drop the Mic!” on Facebook

The word “unable” instantly notifies the controller that you have a good reason for not accepting the clearance. Sometimes they need the airtime a longer response would take to give instructions to another aircraft. An explanation can be added, but keep it short. “Unable, not ready.”

https://faa.gov/social

Paul Cianciolo is an associate editor and the social media lead for FAA Safety Briefing. He is a U.S. Air Force veteran and an auxiliary airman with Civil Air Patrol.

This article was originally published in the January/February 2023 issue of FAA Safety Briefing magazine. https://www.faa.gov/safety_briefing