Better to Be Early--and Safer : It took two fatal air crashes to prompt FAA to move on 757 warning
Isn’t it always better to err on the side of safety in warning pilots about potential hazards on approach to busy airfields? Common sense suggests so.
However, documents obtained by The Times show that the Federal Aviation Administration was formally warned twice since 1991 about problems associated with wake turbulence--mini-tornadoes springing from the wingtips of Boeing 757 jetliners that can raise havoc with planes following too closely behind. In addition, anecdotal evidence of the problem was gathered from pilots by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and brought to the FAA’s attention twice last year.
Still, the FAA issued no warning until last month--after a tragic crash Dec. 15. A twin-engine jet carrying two executives of the In-N-Out hamburger chain and three other persons went down as it approached John Wayne Airport; all in the corporate craft, which had been about two miles behind a 757, were killed. Preliminary reports link both that crash and an eight-fatality crash in Montana in late 1992 to wake turbulence from 757s.
What took so long? The answer isn’t very convincing.
The FAA says that there was nothing “alarming” about the data. Even now, in acknowledging it might have acted sooner, Tony Broderick, an FAA associate administrator, says that a Dec. 22 FAA bulletin on 757 wake turbulence was issued “out of an abundance of caution.”
FAA statements notwithstanding, there appears to have been ample reason for an earlier warning. A 1991 study conducted for the FAA found that 757s caused more wake turbulence than any other plane ever tested; it recommended that smaller planes be kept four miles behind 757s. The same year, a British study presented at an FAA-sponsored symposium recommended that the 757 problem be addressed.
It may be, as the FAA asserts, that the pilots’ adherence to the rules of airmanship was also at issue in the two crashes. But there wouldn’t have been any harm in an earlier statement about a potentially serious problem.
