Warnings on 757s Show FAA’s Dilemma : Aviation: Some seek increased landing distances in light of dangerous wake turbulence. Agency is forced to balance safety and industry’s economic welfare in issuing alerts.

As the FAA weighed recommendations more than two years ago to require more landing distance between Boeing 757 jetliners and planes following them, the agency found itself trying to serve two oft-competing masters: the welfare of the public it is charged to protect and the industry it was formed to promote.

At the root of recent revelations that the Federal Aviation Administration had repeated warnings that 757s produced dangerous wake turbulence lies a harsh economic reality: The agency knew any landing restriction it imposed would mean flight reductions and further revenue losses for an industry that has gone $10 billion in the red since 1990.

After the Dec. 15 crash of a corporate jet in Santa Ana that flew into a 757’s wake turbulence, killing all five people aboard, and a similar accident that killed eight people in December, 1992, some observers believe that the FAA may have chosen the industry’s rail-thin profit margin over the public’s safety margin.

The FAA took no action on the 757 turbulence issue--until recently--despite compelling evidence from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the United Kingdom’s Civil Aviation Authority and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“You can make a safety recommendation, but then the economic factors come into play,” said Leo Garodz, a former FAA manager who was among the first to bring the 757 wake turbulence problem to the agency’s attention.

An FAA specialist in wake turbulence for 20 years, Garodz said his 1991 recommendations on the 757 were not made lightly, but he is sympathetic to the FAA’s plight. “You’re between the devil and the deep blue sea. On the one hand, you’ve got safety. On the other, you’ve got the industry.”

The reason for the dilemma, critics say, is easy enough to illustrate:

On average, 74 Boeing 757s land daily at Los Angeles International Airport, mostly during peak travel hours. Other jets must remain at least three miles behind. If the FAA landing distance requirement was increased by two miles and made mandatory--as some suggested after the accidents--it would effectively push back all the planes bound for the airport. To the airlines, it could mean about 30 fewer jets could land during the peak travel day.

At an average of 200 passengers per plane, the lost revenue is significant.

Multiply that by the number of airports in the country and the millions of dollars in lost opportunity add up.

FAA spokesman Fred O’Donnell in Los Angeles acknowledged that the agency has twin missions: to keep the skies safe and “to foster the growth of civil aviation.” But he said it was an oversimplification to characterize the 757 decision-making process as a matter of safety versus money. He said the evidence given to the FAA over the last two years, although compelling to many, was inconclusive to the FAA.

Since fall, 1991, at least two reports on the potential dangers of 757 wake turbulence have been presented to the FAA, in addition to anecdotal evidence gathered from pilots by NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System. One report, a study by Garodz and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration researcher Kirk Clawson, concluded that the medium-size 757 appeared to generate the most powerful wake turbulence they had ever measured--more powerful than aircraft nearly four times its size. The researchers recommended that the FAA immediately require smaller planes to stay four miles behind 757s on final approach under all circumstances and that further testing be done.

Wake turbulence occurs when a jet speeds through the air, leaving an invisible, but potentially lethal trail of horizontal cyclones that spring out from each wingtip. Such turbulence can cause even mid-size jets to pitch violently and can toss around smaller aircraft like toys.

The most recent accident believed to have been linked to 757 wake turbulence claimed the lives of two executives of the In-N-Out burger chain when a twin-engine jet landing about two miles behind a 757 at John Wayne Airport went out of control.

Garodz said the landing distance recommendations “went over like a lead balloon” because “there always is pressure from the industry to close down separation distances.”

In fact, Garodz said, when the FAA embarked on the study, which also called for testing the larger Boeing 767, it harbored hopes that the results would allow it to decrease the separation requirements for those two aircraft. So did United Airlines, which offered aircraft to use in the study.

“United Airlines believes the potential benefit of this scientific test--proving that airport capacity can be increased 5% to 10% by safely reducing the separation between planes--justifies its contribution of aircraft and crew members for this study,” James M. Guyette, a United executive vice president, said at the time.

Garodz and Clawson also advised the FAA that the space requirement for the 767--six miles for smaller aircraft--not be reduced.

That, too, was greeted with “less than enthusiasm,” Garodz said.

“Nobody likes delays,” he said. “They want to bring the planes closer and increase traffic flow.” To this day, the FAA says it regularly receives proposals from airline carriers, manufacturers and airports to increase the number of passengers they handle by decreasing space requirements.

According to the FAA, an average delay of 10 minutes per flight at an airport the size of Seattle-Tacoma International results in a combined $93 million in losses for the airline carriers.

In 1991, according to an FAA report, 23 of the nation’s largest airports each suffered more than $32 million in losses, solely because of delays, many of which occurred because the approach routes to those destinations were packed with planes. The problem is limited navigable airspace. Every airline wants to be in it during convenient flying hours, from dawn to dusk.

Any lengthening of distance requirements between aircraft makes for fewer flights and fewer opportunities for takeoffs and landings during optimal flying times.

“They’ll never say it, but the FAA is in the business of keeping aircraft moving,” said pilot Peter Murray, who has flown commercial jets for 28 years and regularly skippers 757s. “It basically comes down to dollars and cents.”

All of which makes hard-hit airline carriers more interested in reducing airplane separation standards, which would allow them to land more planes more frequently and would improve their bottom lines.

In fact, said John O’Brien of the Air Line Pilots Assn., which often finds itself fighting for increased space between aircraft for safety reasons, “we see much more interest in doing these things when people are looking for a way to better themselves economically.”

The FAA acknowledges that there is a direct correlation between the lack of navigable airspace and aircraft separation requirements, and it is an area of concern to the FAA and the entire industry, spokesman O’Donnell said. Listed among the goals of the FAA’s 1991 annual report on the airport capacity problem: “More efficient spacing along the final approach path.”

“The FAA’s position is that there is insufficient capacity in this country to meet the projected needs,” O’Donnell said.

Even though the FAA recently has taken actions that suggest the 757 could be reclassified as a heavy jet, which could require up to two miles of increased spacing--from four miles to six--for smaller trailing aircraft, the agency strongly asserted that it did not sacrifice safety by ignoring the data it had received.

However, it was with no information other than the two recent crashes that prompted FAA Administrator David Hinson to issue a bulletin Dec. 22, instructing the nation’s air traffic controllers to tell pilots landing behind 757s they should be aware of potentially heavy turbulence.

O’Donnell said the agency would never compromise the traveling public or the “public that lives under the flight path.” But, he said, “we do recognize that certain orders will have a definite economic impact. . . . We have to ask: ‘Will this create an economic hardship that will destroy the industry?’ ”

Although the FAA looks out for airline manufacturers and carriers, O’Donnell said, the agency does not shirk from taking a tough stand. He referred to the Noise and Capacity Act of 1991, which requires the industry by 2000 to phase out older models such as 727s, 747s and DC-9s in favor of quieter, more fuel-efficient, twin-engine aircraft such as the 757, 767 and the new 777.

O’Donnell said: “The airline industry did not like it. They maintained that it would force many of them out of business. Nevertheless, we felt there was a need to do that, and we did it.”

For its part, Boeing spokeswoman Elizabeth Reese said, the company would need to examine closely any proposal to increase separation distances for the 757. In addition to the concern about increased delays, Reese said, there is another complication: Many environmentally sensitive airports, such as John Wayne in Orange County, bar aircraft classified as heavy. Reclassifying the 757 as a heavy would probably make the aircraft builder’s third-most popular jet less marketable, experts say.

“Slots are few and airports are real crowded,” Reese said. “You try to get the airplanes in and out as fast as you can.”

At a minimum, aviation sources say, even if the FAA did not want to adopt stricter spacing requirements when it first learned of the 757’s wake turbulence problem, it was obliged to alert pilots so they could take extra precautions.

Murray, the commercial jet pilot, said air traffic controllers are very busy and frequently encourage pilots to fly under visual flight rules, which takes much of the responsibility for maintaining a safe distance between aircraft off the controller’s shoulders.

“It’s obvious with this wake vortex problem you can’t just tell a small-plane pilot: ‘There’s a Boeing 757 in front of you, good luck. You’re on your own.’

“He has no way of knowing how far he is from the jet in front of him,” said Murray, whose son flies commuter planes. “He’s hoping he’s far enough away, but the controllers know.”

O’Brien of the Air Line Pilots Assn., which represents 40,000 pilots from 38 airlines, said the association for years has asked that the type of wake turbulence testing done on the 757 be made a routine part of the airline certification process. But “there wasn’t great enthusiasm for that,” he said. It appears a stronger case could be made for that now, he said.

William Reynard, head of NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System, which twice alerted the FAA last year to the 757 problem, said the FAA does the best it can in weighing safety and economic issues. But, he said, “I think it’s intelligent at this point” that the FAA has begun further testing on the 757 and is considering creating a special category for spacing purposes.

Tim Carey, a close friend of John O. McDaniel, the pilot of the plane that crashed in Santa Ana last month after encountering 757 wake turbulence, said safety factors should far outweigh monetary ones. “I’m not an aviator, but safety comes first and nothing else should be considered,” Carey said. “Granted, you want your company to make some profits, but I don’t see throwing in a risk factor for monetary reasons.

“Look what could have been avoided in this case,” he said.

Times staff writers Richard O’Reilly and Caroline Lemke contributed to this report.