Why Does It Always Take a Crash--or Two? : On safety issues, the FAA seems locked in a holding pattern
The crash of an American Eagle turboprop in North Carolina last week that killed 15 people couldn’t have come at a worse time for the commuter airline industry. And the timing wasn’t much better for the Federal Aviation Administration, which deservedly has been blistered by air safety advocates for its repeated and well-documented failure to act quickly on key airline safety reforms, including needed safety improvements for commuter aircraft.
Last Wednesday, less than 24 hours after the North Carolina tragedy, and nearly two months after another American Eagle accident claimed 68 lives in Indiana, Transportation Secretary Federico Pena launched safety audits of the commuter airline industry and promised to beef up inspection standards. A swift reaction?
Not upon examination of the record.
The National Transportation Safety Board strongly cautioned the FAA to bring commuter aviation’s inspection rules in line with larger jet aircraft as early as 1991. Similar warnings were sounded a year later by congressional investigators.
But as with other critical safety issues--including crash-resistant fuel lines, ground-proximity warning systems, large-jet wake turbulence and aircraft icing--the FAA was locked in a holding pattern.
Why? A recent and revealing series on the FAA by Times staff writer Jeff Brazil cites, among other reasons, the agency’s dual role as promoter and protector, the absence of an effective system to identify aviation safety hazards and Byzantine legal requirements that call for lengthy cost-benefit analysis before any regulatory change can be implemented.
The FAA let years pass and hundreds of lives be lost before implementing appropriate safety policies.
The threat to passengers from ice buildup on aircraft wings, for example, was well-documented since 1982, when 78 died after an Air Florida 737 crashed on takeoff in Washington, D.C. After 23 more icing-related accidents, the government finally toughened its icing procedures in 1992.
More recently, the FAA was warned of the danger for small planes following too closely behind Boeing 757 jets. Experts recommended increasing the minimum trailing distances. The agency, worried about the economic impacts, delayed changes. Two fatal crashes later, those distance requirements were increased. FAA Administrator David Hinson defends his agency’s safety record but acknowledges that the bureaucracy could respond faster. A proposed database will help. So would a “safety czar” to oversee regulation of the airline industry.
Besides the changes announced last week, Secretary Pena should mold an agency that puts safety in the skies first. That can’t happen when regulatory changes get bounced around like a hot potato between the Transportation Department, the Office of Management and Budget and the FAA.
There’s no shortage of ideas. The real question is how many more dead bodies will have to be pulled out of planes to justify long-needed changes.
