ValuJet Crash Fans Winds of Change at FAA

From the steps of Federal Aviation Administration headquarters last week, the pewter-gray, chowder-thick clouds that stretched for miles provided an apt metaphor for the agency that is accused of failing to ground troubled ValuJet Airlines before last month’s fatal crash in Florida.

“Sure, they’re under siege and they should be,” said one aviation expert who worked for the FAA for 30 years.

Similar sentiments have been expressed before--and often, but little has come of it. But this time, analysts say, major reforms may at last be on the horizon because the chorus of criticism comes as some extraordinary circumstances coalesce.

Among them: It’s an election year, and Clinton administration officials have made it clear to the FAA and the Transportation Department that action is a political necessity to regain the public’s confidence.

Top officials--most notably Transportation Secretary Federico Pena--continue to reap embarrassing criticism for inexplicably defending ValuJet after the crash, even though FAA inspectors had documented a disturbing number of maintenance problems before the DC-9’s plunge into the Everglades. Although maintenance deficiencies do not appear to be directly related to the May 11 tragedy, analysts say agency higher-ups have to show that they will be better informed before issuing statements.

Congress, which has talked about overhauling the FAA for years, now apparently will at least consider stripping the FAA of one of its two main missions--promoting air travel--so that it can concentrate on safety.

At the same time, FAA headquarters on Independence Avenue is replete with stern-faced investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board, the Transportation Department’s inspector general’s office and Congress--all preparing for hearings and reports that are expected to cast the agency’s actions in the ValuJet matter in a poor light.

In addition, Sen. William S. Cohen (R-Maine) has asked for the Justice Department to investigate allegations that the FAA is using computer analysis to identify an FAA inspector who testified anonymously before Congress in April on flawed safety inspections. Agency officials deny the allegation.

All of this is occurring as the agency is losing Anthony J. Broderick--its controversial longtime safety enforcer, whose forced exit came last week in the wake of the ValuJet crash. Observers say his considerable acumen at freeing the agency from past quagmires will be sorely missed in the months ahead.

“This agency is a wreck,” said Bob Poole, head of the Reason Foundation, which has monitored the FAA for 20 years. “But I don’t know if I’ve ever seen the window of opportunity for real reform at the FAA open so wide for so long.”

Usually when the FAA is chastised, agency officials quickly point to what they consider to be the bottom line: the rarity of airplane crashes.

While experts disagree on how best to gauge air safety today, airplane travel ranks as the safest mode of transportation in the United States. Chances of dying in an airplane crash are about the same as the probability of being killed by lightning.

“Flying is safe, there’s no question about that,” said a senior official with the NTSB, the agency charged with probing the causes of crashes and recommending to the FAA how to prevent future ones. “But the comeback is: We can make it better, and we can do it without even spending any more money.”

That devastating airplane tragedies occur so rarely is one reason the public fixates on them and insists that the FAA be held to the highest standards. When people take a seat inside a huge metal tube and are swept through the atmosphere at 500 mph, they feel uniquely powerless. They are at the mercy of the airline and the agency charged with ensuring they reach their destination safely.

The reality is, however, that while statistics support the FAA’s position that the industry is safe, many times investigations of crashes have revealed problems that could have been addressed years before.

“What you have with the FAA is a case of repeated substandard performance,” said retired American Airlines Capt. Pepe Lefevre, who has sat on numerous FAA advisory committees.

Said Kingsley S. Haynes, director of the Institute for Public Policy at George Mason University in Virginia: “The FAA tries very hard, but they have these persistent problems that continue to plague it.”

Analysts say answers to the FAA’s problems are complicated and difficult. Here are some of the more widely endorsed solutions:

* Change the workplace culture as it relates to safety.

The record shows that the FAA has repeatedly acted too slowly on safety issues, and often only after accidents. Employees who ferret out potential safety problems and raise their concerns, such as those in the case of ValuJet, should be rewarded and imbued with the confidence that their superiors will take them seriously and act accordingly.

Many FAA employees now believe that concerns they raise will languish, particularly those that are costly to the industry.

* Provide for more stable leadership.

The average tenure of an FAA administrator is about two years. The consistent turnover at the top stifles initiative among the agency’s vast troops, who often get a new set of priorities with each new boss. The administrator serves at the pleasure of the president. Some experts believe that it should be a fixed term of perhaps seven years or more, which would provide greater insulation from shifting political winds.

“What happens is, you’re in the middle of something and a new guy comes in and says, ‘I want some other things done,’ ” said Hugh Waterman, a former longtime FAA official. “After that happens 12 or 13 times, you begin to believe you’ll never see the fruits of your labor, and you can get jaded.”

* Ensure more stable funding so the FAA’s budget isn’t subject to the political vicissitudes of Congress.

Among other things, an agency that regulates one of the most important industries in the nation, which squires about 1.5 million people a day, ought to be able to count on hiring enough inspectors and training them properly.

Lefevre says that when he would have FAA inspectors board newer generations of aircraft, such as Boeing 757s, they would tell him: “Well, I don’t know anything about this airplane, but I’m here.”

* Complete the separation of the agency’s oft-competing twin missions of promoting the industry and ensuring safety, which Pena last week pledged to ask Congress to do.

Many experts believe that allowing the FAA to focus solely on safety would sufficiently reinforce the so-called arm’s-length relationship it has with the industry.

For instance, the FAA works so intimately with airlines now that it almost becomes a co-creator, a role that many believe can compromise agency judgment when safety issues arise. If the agency helps design and certify a new aircraft or device or instrument, it may be reluctant to admit to having made a mistake, experts say.

In addition, excising the FAA’s charge to foster airline commerce would do away with lengthy cost-benefit analyses for every safety recommendation that comes along.

Aviation safety expert C.O. Miller believes that the FAA needs to devote significant resources to an accident-prevention program. “The FAA’s philosophy right now is, if an airline meets the minimum requirements, it’s safe,” said Miller, who has consulted with the FAA over many years. “Well, that simply isn’t true.

“They need a formal, aggressive program whose goal is to prevent accidents before they happen.”

For instance, newer-model flight-data recorders are considered invaluable in preventing accidents because they tell investigators what the aircraft was doing in the moments before impact.

But the FAA has said the cost is not justified to require their installation on older-model Boeing 737s. The decision was made against the advice of federal accident investigators, who have been unable to solve two crashes of Boeing 737s in Pennsylvania and Colorado and are concerned that the aircraft may harbor some design flaw.

Even analysts who think well of the FAA in general strongly fault its decision in this matter, and agree it illustrates why agency reform is important--and timely.

“That’s a bad decision; they’re way, way overdue,” said Rudy Kapustin, a longtime accident investigator who said he believes that the FAA is often scapegoated by Congress and the industry. “I think that’s responsive to lobbying. And sometimes, the FAA has just got to cram it down their throats.”

As Congress prepares to hold a series of hearings on the FAA and as the NTSB completes its ValuJet crash investigation, former FAA manager Waterman observed: “The one thing I would hate to see is to have a tragedy like ValuJet and not learn from it.”

Or, as one congressional staff member put it, “The problem is not this accident, but the next one.”