Full FAA Chronology at this link.
19460211: The United States and Great Britain signed the Bermuda Agreement, an Air Service Agreement for the operation of commercial air services, which set a pattern for the conclusion of subsequent bilateral civil aviation treaties by the United States. (See July 23, 1977.)
19570211: The Senate confirmed James T. Pyle as Administrator of Civil Aeronautics. He succeeded Charles J. Lowen, who died September 5, 1956 (see entry for December 8, 1955). Pyle had been Deputy Administrator under Lowen. He was nominated as Lowen’s successor on December 20, 1956, and took the oath of office on an interim appointment on December 26, 1956.
Pyle studied business law and accounting at Princeton and Columbia Universities, aircraft mechanics at the Casey Jones School of Aeronautics, and meteorology and transportation at the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aeronautics, New York University. From 1935 to 1944 he had worked for Pan American Airways, and during World War II he had served in the Pacific with the Naval Air Transport Service. He returned briefly to Pan American after the war, then became president of the Air Charter Company in Denver, Colo., and later president of the Denver Air Terminal Corporation. In 1953, he became a special assistant to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Air, and in 1956 he joined CAA as Deputy Administrator. (See December 31, 1958.)
19860211: The Department of Transportation released an order suspending commercial aviation relations with Libya. The action made final a tentative order issued in response to a January 7 Presidential directive which declared Libya a threat to U.S. security. Tensions between the two nations continued to grow, fed by events that included naval clashes and a bombing in Germany in which a U.S. soldier was one of the two fatalities. On April 15, the confrontation culminated in a U.S. air raid against Libya. (See December 27, 1985, and April 15, 1992.)
19980211: FAA held its first Commercial Space Transportation Forecast Conference. (See December 19, 1997; April 21, 1998.)
19980211: President Clinton signed into law the FAA Research, Engineering, and Development Authorization Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-155). The bill mandated FAA establish a program to fund undergraduate and technical colleges, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Hispanic Serving Institutions, to perform research on subjects of relevance to FAA. The legislation also required the agency to assess immediately the extent of the risk to its operations that could be identified up until the year 2000 and to develop contingency plans to reduce or avoid the risk introduced by faulty systems that could not be fully corrected before the target year.
20050211: FAA released draft safety guidelines for space tourism, in anticipation of developing final regulations no later than June 2006. The draft guidelines would require a reusable launch vehicle operator to inform space tourists, in writing, about the safety record of the vehicle they would fly on and compare that record with those of other manned space vehicles. After being given time to ask questions about the risks of flight, passengers would be required to provide written consent prior to flight. Each passenger also would receive safety training on how to respond to any credible emergency situations – which were likely to include cabin depressurization, fire, smoke, and emergency egress. (See December 23, 2004; June 1, 2005.)
20140211: FAA issued a final rule prohibiting flightcrew members in operations under Part 121 from using a personal wireless communications device or laptop computer for personal use while at their duty station on the flight deck when the aircraft was being operated. The rule became effective on April 14, 2014. (See October 31, 2013.)
20210211: FAA announced the Republic of Costa Rica complied with international safety standards and had been granted the highest international ranking. Costa Rica received a Category 2 rating in May 2019 after it failed to comply with ICAO’s safety standards. The Category 1 status was based on a reassessment in 2020 and a January 2021 safety oversight meeting with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGAC). A Category 1 rating meant the country’s civil aviation authority complied with ICAO standards. Under Category 1 rating, properly authorized Costa Rican air carriers were permitted to serve the United States and carry the code of U.S. carriers without limitation.