More Than a Little Late
The National Transportation and Safety Board has concluded that Aloha Airlines’ failure to inspect and maintain its aircraft properly caused the accident last year in which the top of a Boeing 737 was ripped away in midair and a stewardess was swept to her death.
Given the evidence in the case, the board’s finding is sound, but so is the reaction of Aloha’s president, A. Maurice Meyers, who described the accident as a “system failure” involving not only his airline, but also the plane’s manufacturer and the Federal Aviation Administration, which has the legal responsibility to oversee both. The board concurred in the latter point, and criticized the FAA for its inadequate supervision of Aloha.
But the most damning conclusion to be drawn from this tragic incident is that it was entirely preventable. All of the factors which contributed to this fatal accident--the special hazards posed by aging aircraft, the insufficiencies of many airlines’ maintenance programs, the woeful inadequacies of FAA oversight--have been known for some time.
In a Times investigation whose findings were published more than three years ago, staff writers Richard E. Meyer and Ralph Vartabedian clearly documented the corrosive impact the confluence of these three factors has had on the safety of America’s air transport system. Responding to the story at the time, C. O. Miller, one of the country’s most respected air safety consultants, said, “I see an erosion of safety margins everywhere . . . The FAA and industry reaction sometimes seem to be that you need an accident to know there is a problem. If you need an accident to know you have a problem, then you are part of the problem.”
In fact, the FAA’s role in creating the problem that now poses such real hazards to the traveling public was clearly demonstrated by the fact that it was not until last week--three years after publication of The Times’ story and a year after the deadly accident in the sky over Hawaii--that the agency tentatively ordered preventive modifications of the airlines’ oldest planes.
The failure on which attention ought now to focus is that of Congress, which has the responsibility to force the FAA to fulfill its obligations as guarantor of the public’s safety.
