DANGEROUS DELAYS : VOICES

A Critical Look at the FAA:

“This is tombstone technology. It requires a tombstone for the required technology to be used. . . . The world airlines and the FAA are not using the technology we now have.”

--Alex Richman of Nova Scotia, whose son David was killed in the 1991 crash involving two planes at Los Angeles International Airport.

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“Eight people died on that plane. The more you heard about it, the more senseless it became. It could have been prevented. . . . Where the heck were the safety coordinators and supervisors that are supposed to be looking out of this kind of thing?”

--Milio Rinna of Allen Park, Mich., who survived the collision of two planes on a foggy runway in Detroit in 1990.

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“For several weeks, this had a sobering impact on me. It was like cheating death. For some reason you are spared.”

--Fred Land of Calhoun, Ga., who survived the collision of two planes at an Atlanta airport in 1990.

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“FAA’s routine air taxi inspections have been limited, and the inspections that were conducted generally did not discover serious safety violations of air taxis that subsequently had their operating certificates revoked. . . . Because of the limited degree of FAA’s inspection oversight, air taxis can operate with violations that pose a safety risk to the public.”

--January, 1992, General Accounting Office report on inspections of air taxis

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“While FAA’s dual responsibilities of providing aviation safety and fostering air commerce are not always incompatible, in times of rapid industry change, they present the agency with unavoidable conflicts. Congress may wish to identify safety as FAA’s sole and unique responsibility. . . . Responsibility for fostering economic development of the industry could be returned to the Secretary of Transportation.”

--Office of Technology Assessment report, July, 1988.