Jim Hall, Top Watchdog at Safety Agency, to Resign

For seven years, National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Jim Hall has been the nation’s official explainer of air crashes, tersely describing failures of flaps, wires and human decision-making in his Tennessee drawl.

Today, Hall will resign from the independent safety watchdog agency to make room for new leadership in a Bush administration.

In an interview, Hall said the state of aviation safety is good, but it requires constant effort to make improvements. He cautioned against quick fixes to relieve air traffic congestion. “Delays are now a safety valve until we get the technology to handle increased traffic,” he said.

Asked to name his biggest concern, Hall gave an unexpected response: “The alarming rate that we’re killing kids on our highways.”

While car crashes are the leading cause of death among children older than 1, children’s safety depends heavily on car seat and seat belt laws that are the responsibility of state and local officials.

“We have a good safety culture in aviation, but we have failed in the fundamentals on our highways,” said Hall. “As a nation we like to talk about the importance of young people, but on our highways we have failed our kids. The auto industry has failed and our regulators have failed and our society has failed.”

In the last two years, Hall prodded the industry to fund a network of local clinics to help parents correctly install child seats.

Hall, 59, a lawyer who has spent most of his career in state and federal government, is expected to seek a more lucrative private-sector job.

The NTSB became more activist on Hall’s watch, defying intense skepticism to solve some of history’s most mysterious air crashes and expanding its agenda to deal with new issues, such as air bag safety. While it has no power to regulate, its recommendations carry great weight.

“It’s not only that his face has been on TV a lot; he’s given the public a sense of confidence and ability,” said Cynthia Lebow, a Los Angeles attorney who led a 1999 Rand Corp. examination of the NTSB. “It’s a small agency and a proud group of people, and the personnel have risen to the challenge.”

The leading candidate to head the agency under Bush is said to be American Airlines Vice Chairman Bob Baker, a hard-nosed, articulate executive who built his career in the intense world of flight operations, where everything hinges on mastery of constantly changing details.

While Baker is clearly qualified, aviation sources said his corporate link may raise concerns about compromising the NTSB’s autonomy--the key to its credibility. Critics said the agency already relies too heavily on industry experts in its investigations. His admirers said his expertise would be an asset.

Hall’s last act as chairman will be to break ground on a new NTSB training center near Dulles International Airport in Virginia. It will house the fuselage of TWA Flight 800, reassembled from thousands of pieces raised from the ocean in testament to the patience and persistence of the agency’s investigators.