Among the resources our members have to improve product quality and operational safety is the FAA’s Service Difficulty Report (SDR) for gathering data about chronic or significant component and system failures. SDR submissions are useful in two ways. They become part of the FAA database so that others with similar problems can benefit by seeing failure patterns, and they inform the FAA of failure situations that merit follow up with the manufacturer. In theory, as SDRs accumulate, failure trends should elevate the priority within the FAA to seek a remedy with the manufacturer.
For Part 91 operators, submitting SDRs is completely voluntary, but MMOPA recommends it as a way of recording significant issues and creating a feedback mechanism to facilitate change and improvement.
In the past, the FAA has used Form 8070-1 for manual submissions to the Field Service District Office. However, the FAA now offers an automated web-based submission system. For Part 91 operators, there is no need to create an account or login.
Link to the FAA’s online form
Simply go to the above link and select ‘Create a Malfunction/Defect Report’ under ‘Public Functions’ in the left hand menu. There is also a link to Review Reference Documents if you have questions about how to fill out the online form.
Your submission will be assigned a Unique Control number and you can print out the completed form for your records.
Thank you for your interest in safety and product improvement.
If you have an immediate product support issue, please contact a Piper Distribution Service Administrator (DSA), the MMOPA Service Hotlines (203-303-7851) or the MMOPA Ombudsman. Thank you.