Agency Too Slow to Act on ValuJet, FAA Chief Says

The head of the Federal Aviation Administration conceded Tuesday that his agency acted too slowly in cracking down on ValuJet’s aircraft maintenance problems but he said that those shortcomings had nothing to do with the May 11 accident that killed 110 persons.

Testifying before a House Transportation subcommittee, FAA Administrator David Hinson said that, as late as a year ago when ValuJet began to grow rapidly, the agency “could have done a better job” in slowing that growth to a more manageable pace.

The FAA administrator, who has headed the agency since 1993, also told the panel that he intends to leave the post by the end of the year. He said he made that commitment to President Clinton when he was appointed.

His testimony was delivered in a jampacked hearing room. Other government regulators and agency officials also testified, assailing the FAA.

Jim Hall, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates aircraft accidents, cited several cases of poor FAA supervision over the last decade and said the agency has repeatedly ignored NTSB warnings over the years about safety problems it should have resolved.

The agency’s moves to tighten maintenance rules for carriers such as ValuJet since the May 11 crash shows that “we don’t have a ValuJet problem here, we have an FAA problem,” Hall said.

Hinson insisted during his testimony, however, that “there is no apparent relationship” between the crash of ValuJet Flight 592 into the Florida Everglades six weeks ago and “any issues of compliance at ValuJet.”

As he has virtually since the ValuJet crash, Hinson attributed the accident to a fire most likely fueled by oxygen generators that were mislabeled and put on the plane without proper packing.

In other testimony, Mary F. Schiavo, inspector general of the Transportation Department, cited a list of instances in which the FAA had moved too slowly to correct a problem. She called ValuJet “a microcosm for the problems that we have uncovered at the FAA.”

Schiavo also said the relationship between the airline and the FAA was the subject of a criminal investigation but she declined to provide details about the inquiry or who was conducting it. Reports of the investigation had surfaced before but had not been confirmed.

Republicans and Democrats on the panel sparred over reports that the White House had sought to influence the FAA decision on whether to ground ValuJet after the May crash. ValuJet agreed last week to cease operations temporarily after the FAA threatened to ground it formally.

Hinson and several FAA and Transportation Department aides testified, however, that they already had made their decision to ground the airline--or at least to force it to stop operating--before a June 17 White House meeting called to review the agency’s action.

Hinson also drew fire from lawmakers in both parties for remarks that he and Transportation Secretary Federico Pena made just after the ValuJet crash assuring the public that the airline still was safe.

But Hinson was unrepentant about those comments. “At what point do you find [that] an airline is noncompliant and ground them?” he asked rhetorically. “That’s a problem that has given the FAA lots of heartburn over the years.”

There was no indication that any major new legislation would emerge as a result of the ValuJet crash.

Rep. John J. Duncan Jr. (R-Tenn.), the subcommittee’s chairman, said the panel would introduce legislation designed to ensure that families of those who die in airplane crashes are “treated with dignity and respect” but he offered no details.

At the same hearing, ValuJet President Lewis Jordan insisted that the airline is safe. “While we do not claim a flawless record, we do claim the greatest possible commitment to safety,” he said. “I would have grounded the airline myself if I thought it otherwise.”

The FAA’s effectiveness in enforcing its regulations has been a continuing issue for several years. Both Schiavo’s office and the General Accounting Office have complained for years that the agency’s inspection process is too lax and inefficient.

Sen. William S. Cohen (R-Maine), chairman of the Senate Government Affairs oversight subcommittee that deals with aviation, joined in criticizing the agency for not moving quickly enough to carry out some of the changes that have been suggested by its critics.

Cohen said the FAA’s failure to act quickly was “indicative of a managerial culture that denies problems exist, defends the status quo and uses public relations spins to deflect criticism.”

Hinson’s admission that the FAA should have acted more aggressively came, as he put it, “in retrospect” and in the context of how rapidly the airline should have been allowed to expand in view of the difficulty that it apparently had in keeping up its maintenance schedules.

Hinson said that somewhere between the time that ValuJet acquired 25 airplanes and expanded to 51, the agency should have suggested that the airline take steps to slow its growth until it could get a better handle on its operations.

“Retrospectively, I have said . . . that we should have done a better job of helping ValuJet manage their . . . management infrastructure, especially with regard to maintenance, if they were going to grow at the rate they chose to do,” he said.