A Storm Even Broderick Could Not Ride Out

From his exalted position on the dais, Sen. Sam Nunn fixed his gaze on the lowly congressional witness table where Anthony J. Broderick sat and launched into a stern lecture on aviation safety and honesty such as a minister might deliver to a wayward member of his flock.

By the time the Georgia Democrat had finished on that 1986 morning, he had all but accused Broderick, in front of God and country, of deceiving the committee.

And what did Mr. Broderick have to say about that?

Broderick replied calmly: “I don’t intend to.”

As resolute as an Oliver L. North, as politically Teflon-coated as a J. Edgar Hoover, Broderick over the years had quietly become an untouchable institution at the Federal Aviation Administration.

Presidents came and went. So did FAA administrators. But none dared lay so much as a pinky on Broderick, whose willingness and ability to weather megadoses of political heat was as valuable a commodity as any in this town.

But the storm that became the aftermath of the May ValuJet crash in Florida proved impossible even for Broderick, 53, to ride out.

Some analysts reacted to Broderick’s surprise “retirement” announcement with a hearty “good riddance,” saying that his ouster would solve some of the problems that for more than a decade have plagued the agency that is supposed to guarantee the safety of air travel in the United States.

“I have never found him to be what I would call pro-active in the area of safety,” said James Burnett, former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates airplane crashes and makes safety recommendations to the FAA. “I think he often was an apologist for the [aviation] industry.”

Others, lamenting the loss of a man they termed talented and knowledgeable, speculated that he was dutifully taking the fall for his two more public bosses, FAA Administrator David R. Hinson and Transportation Secretary Federico Pena. They said that the FAA needed far more than a one-man management shake-up.

“If they use him as a scapegoat and nothing else changes, then it’s not going to accomplish anything,” said C. O. Miller, an aviation safety expert and former FAA official.

FAA detractors hope Broderick’s exit, whether voluntary or forced, will signal to the rest of the agency and the public that the FAA brass will be held responsible for mistakes. For far too long, they say, high-level career bureaucrats within the FAA have escaped blame for the agency’s well-documented failures.

“Nobody gets fired; nobody pays the price,” as one congressional staff member put it.

Even when FAA negligence or laxness has been found to contribute to airplane crashes, the ax has almost always struck mid- or lower-level employees. Those who were punished often had red-flagged emerging safety concerns, only to have their warnings unheeded until after a tragedy.

“This might be a step in the right direction,” said Burnett, long a critic of FAA management, “if the people in the career bureaucracy learn that they can’t make decisions in favor of the airlines and expect to keep their jobs.”

As associate administrator for regulation and certification, Broderick served as the agency’s top regulator, the key gatekeeper at the intersection of the industry’s twin missions of providing safety and promoting aviation. In perhaps the most powerful position in the agency, he had the combined authority to certify airlines and aircraft as safe to fly and to regulate the operation of the airlines.

Recognized in aviation circles by his first name alone, Tony Broderick oversaw a $350-million budget and more than 4,000 employees scattered across the country. A physicist, he came to the FAA more than 20 years ago and has been honored repeatedly as an outstanding executive of the federal government.

No reasonable critics believe that Broderick, or anyone else in the FAA, courted air disasters. The best way to promote the aviation industry, after all, is to have no accidents.

But they do believe that Broderick, like the FAA in general, had become too close to the industry, too often erring on the side of the airlines instead of the public when it came to deciding whether to enact costly safety measures.

It was Broderick, for example, who was at the center of the debate in 1994 over whether to order planes landing behind Boeing 757 jetliners to stay an extra mile behind because of the 757’s peculiarly powerful wake turbulence. The airlines opposed the measure, in part because it would have meant costly delays in schedules.

For years, Broderick agreed with the airlines, even after two fatal crashes that were linked to 757 wake turbulence, accidents that were all but predicted by lower-level FAA officials years before.

The extra spacing was eventually ordered after a wave of criticism, including a Department of Transportation report concluding that the FAA may have mishandled the issue.

Last fall, Broderick insisted that the proliferation of noncertified airline parts did not pose a safety hazard, despite compelling evidence to the contrary gathered by congressional investigators. And he has maintained that the FAA’s airline inspection force was well trained and up to the task, even as FAA inspectors themselves were testifying to the contrary.

“Tony says things that I would consider marginally outrageous and he says them with a straight face,” said Ira Furman, a former NTSB official turned aviation attorney. “Some political appointees have been embarrassed by things Tony Broderick says with conviction.”

By the same token, Furman added: “Tony’s held the fort for the FAA for a long time. You have to respect him for that.”

Those inclined to rally behind Broderick argue that he has faced a difficult task within the agency. Despite what some critics say, deciding whether to require new safety measures requires a difficult balancing of potential loss of life against the cost to the industry.

The reality, they say, is that the industry cannot be so burdened by costly safety standards that it cannot serve the public adequately. If planes were built safe enough that they would virtually never crash, no one would be able to afford to fly on them.

“Tony’s an honorable guy,” said one former FAA official. “He has the toughest job in the FAA.”

Aviation consultant Rudy Kapustin says that Broderick performed well under the circumstances. “A lot of times I don’t know whether Tony’s right or wrong,” he said. “But he sounds good.”