Citizens, Farmers,
Soldiers and Statesmen
Thank
you very much for inviting me to be a part of your efforts to improve
air safety.
Like most of America, and
most likely the entire world, I used to think air safety and the
reasonable regulation thereof were responsibilities and privileges
rightfully in the hands of the Federal government--and exclusively so.
I thought that even after going through flight school. I though that
after going through government school. I thought that after law
school. And, I thought that after I worked for the government for many
years.
But I do not think that now,
and you do not think that now. But how then to explain this to the
rest of the world, and what difference does it make whether
government-by-and-for-the-people is a current reality? Oh yes, as we
approach the year 2000 (Y2K bug and all, in various degrees of repair
by the agencies of the Federal government, the FAA self-proclaimed to
be about 60% percent fixed) most folks seem to exist comfortably by
pretty much ignoring government. We all forgot about the participatory
democracy platitudes shortly after high school civics class, until
something happens that government should have done something about.
Some things are so precious,
so sacred, so life sustaining, so important that we cannot leave these
things untended, unguarded, unexamined, in the hands of government.
Specifically, the lives of my children, your children, your life, my
life, and the lives of all those we love.
And, we cannot trust things
so important to the government, because government forgets. You do
not. Therein lies the reason that the framers of the Constitution
envisioned the citizen-farmer-soldier-statesman. Government is best is
administered by real people. People who have not lost touch. People
who govern, but go home to the normal range of human
experiences--people whose values reflect the nation as a whole,
because they are the nation as a whole. Farmers who are soldiers when
necessary and governors when expedient, but at the end of the campaign
(in the theatre of war or the theatre of politics) return home to the
approval or approbation of their countrymen.
There is no calling which
better proves the wisdom of such Constitutional conscience than
aviation, an endeavor without serious mention in 1776, and then even
imaginations were confined to balloons and birds--the Montgolfier
brothers and the martins.
I started becoming
suspicious of the wisdom of government preemption when I first went to
Washington, D.C. as a White House Fellow. I was assigned to the
Attorney General of the United States of America and served as his
Special Assistant for criminal and prosecution matters. There was a
meeting in Washington, D.C., of the AG and sundry assistants and
deputies working at the Justice Department headquarters, almost none
of whom had actually been street prosecutors. They were debating some
new policies for the field Assistant U.S. Attorneys-the several
thousand of us who were actually out there prosecuting the federal
criminals of America, and prescribing operational rules which made
absolutely no sense to anyone who actually had to conduct a federal
investigation and prosecution. I spoke up and said, "Wait a
minute, I am from the field and that is not the way it works. Here is
what makes sense." What made sense to the rest of the country,
and in the real world, had gotten lost in Washington, D.C. D.C. was so
out of touch that in the field (meaning any part of the United States
of America lying outside Washington, D.C., and Arlington, Fairfax,
Montgomery and Prince Georges Counties) we referred to main Justice as
the Puzzle Palace, and often openly laughed at the directives which
came to us from on high, in the form of videotapes which, after
viewing, we were forced to sign an affidavit stating we had watched
it.
There were often 2
unfortunate hallmarks of government conducted in this manner. First,
the policies were not representative of the requests and realities of
the rest of the country and second, the government (except for the
IRS) seems to have a real bad memory.
Nowhere is this more evident
than in aviation.
Let me explain by anecdote,
since Congress is said to govern by anecdote.
Let me first read to you
some excerpts about the crash of TWA 800.
(I will save these for those of you in attendance.)
Now let me read to you some
excerpts from the cockpit voice recorder of the final minutes of the
Swissair jet crash. (Again, a surprise for those of you in
attendance.)
Would it surprise you to
learn that since 1994, just in the FAA publicly available internet
data bases there are 783 reports of smoke in the cockpit, with about
half of the reports concerning commercial carriers?
How about the history of
smoke and fire suppression and detection systems before ValuJet? The
FAA had a little something to say about their reasoning process just
this month when they answered questions posed by the United States
Senate--which answers are soon to appear in the Congressional Record.
(Another irony for those of you in attendance to ponder.)
How about bad wire and what
the government knew and when they knew it? Mr. Block filled you in on
that situation yesterday.
Now lets turn our attention
to the statement of some of the aviation officials of this country
(and my thanks to (Ostriches Anonymous Association for collecting some
of these statements in the annual Head in the Sand Award Competition).
The survivors were just
lucky that there was no fuel on board the airplane when it crashed.
(Note--the plane had just crashed because it ran out of fuel.)
We've had a terrible year
for accidents (1996). On the other hand, two of them, the ValuJet and
the TWA, don't appear to be directly related to maintenance or flight
operations or anything. (FAA Associate Administrator)
The probable cause of the
controlled flight into terrain accident was that the pilots descended
below the minimum descent altitude for that approach. (NTSB Report)
The manufacturers
recommended increase in final approach speeds during known or forecast
icing conditions did not apply to the plane that crashed because it
was still maneuvering to the final approach. (Airline spokesperson)
I don't see a problem. (The
FAA chief of air traffic control after being told that controllers
under 5 feet 5 inches tall could not see over the counters at the $25
million FAA tower at Washington National Airport.)
It doesn't need flaps to
fly. (The FAA after a 21-foot wing flap of a Delta plane loaded with
passengers fell off over DFW while on approach for landing. Note--this
is true. The plane needs them to LAND or take off.)
I have learned to speak for
any period of time--30 minutes, 45 minutes--and not say anything. (FAA
Administrator (former))
During flight tests in
natural icing, it is very difficult to find the maximum tolerated
levels, and it would not be realistic to want to find conditions more
severe than those fixed by regulation. (French Investigating Agency.)
I am disappointed you have
not yet dated my daughter. (Current FAA Administrator Garvey to a
representative at the meeting of the Task Force on Victims and
Families.)
We learned that the analysis
of routine flight data…provides significant data by identifying
trends. These trends can point out potential problems and enable us to
take steps before (emphasis in original) accidents happen. Let me
repeat that-before accidents happen (emphasis in original). (The
current FAA Administrator)
Sadly, the rest of the world
has known that for some time. We citizen-farmer-soldier-statesmen
believe that is precisely how government is supposed to operate.
Indeed, that is how we thought it did operate, until we started
tracking the governments response to aviation problems. When I was
Inspector General, we investigated that precise point. Our report was
nicknamed the Black Hole Report, because we discovered that reports of
known design and engineering problems went into a black hole. The FAA
made no use of them for trending and tracking problems and fixing them
before disasters. Indeed it was during that investigation that I
discovered the FAA Two Crash Rule. One crash is an aberration, not a
trend, so no corrective action is ordered. Only upon the second crash
will the FAA order action. That is why TWA 800, ValuJet, Korean Air,
FineAir, and Swissair, and countless other tragedies are so impossible
to bear. Voices spoke out, but the government labeled those persons
extremists, themselves aberrations, wild cards, unnecessarily scaring
the public.
Why is aviation the only
mode of transportation in which there is a hands off policy?....It is
indeed even more regrettable that our transportation policy makers at
the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of
Transportation have been unresponsive to those voicing concern….What
determines the government's transportation policy?.--Well, that
depends on what floor of the DOT Building you are on. (The United
States Congress, Representative Borski.)
Indeed if there was ever an
accident waiting to happen, this is it. (Congressman Borski)
The transportation policy is determined in part by the cost benefit
analysis. What surprised me most when my book was printed was the huge
disconnect between the FAA insiders reaction to my publication of the
use of cost benefits analysis and the fact that it was cheaper to kill
a few of us rather than fix the problem, the remedial action was not
ordered, and the reaction of the rest of the country. The FAA types
and their usual pundits said so what, big deal, we have to do this
because of government regulation. We inside the government all know
that is how regulations are made. The rest of the country was angry,
shocked, outraged and disappointed that our lives were a mere dollar
tit for tat. Surely our government could not be so cold and
calculating.
Back to 1776 for a moment. Our government was never supposed to become
so cold and calculating. That's what the framers did not
intend--sending bureaucrats to Washington for their entire
lives-neither bureaucrats nor Senators nor Members of Congress. But
that's what we ended up with.
Now getting back to 1998. So
why is that so bad? Here's why.
James Oberstar $305,505
John Murtha $289,225
Newt Gingrich $275,165
Ted Stevens $247,616
Norm Minetta $244,292
Money from aviation's big
money. Keeping your government post in an elected position costs
money. If you make aviation policy, the easiest and biggest pot to dip
into is that of the aviation interests.
But how about our
regulators, the government by the unelected? They are perhaps worse,
because they are not answerable to you, the public voters, but make
aviation policy based on the costs to the airline, now admittedly so,
even when they know some people will die.
"Plain and simple--dollars." That's how Thomas McSweeney,
top director of FAA's Aircraft Certification Service put it.
WHY NADA CAN BE THE MOST
EFFECTIVE FORCE FOR AVIATION SAFETY.
Three words--you don't
forget. The government is aided in its amnesia by such government
regulation as records destruction policies permitting vast sums of
information, data, and disclosures which otherwise would be routinely
destroyed after in some cases 3 years, or even 14 days, information
which would allow citizens to hold the government more accountable.
Protective personnel rules shield government employees from ever being
held publicly accountable where the violation is deemed to be
administrative as opposed to criminal, and that is most of them.
Names, locations and even longitude and latitude are purged from
government data when it is requested subject to the Freedom of
Information Act, so it is useless to the probing air safety
researcher.
It is so bad, in 1996 I sent
the FAA Administrator a letter complaining about the FAA Culture of
Accountability. It was so bad, that unless the media caught the FAA in
action, and usually on tape, the FAA would deny it ever happened.
Ultimate deniability they call it in Washington. FAA officials
deliberately instructing underlings not to tell them something so they
can deny it. I don't know what's worse-that this exists, or that
there's a name for it.
But NADA does not operate on
a system of ultimate deniability. Quite the opposite. NADA is on a
quest for full information, full disclosure, full action, full effort,
and full speed ahead. And frankly, you are it.
Oh sure, there's the Flight
Safety Foundation. Have you checked their sources of funding lately?
There's an industry publication about sir safety. Have you looked at
their paid advertising and other sources of revenue?
You are the undisputed
leader when it comes to objective, persistent and heartfelt efforts.
No one can question your place at the table. You have more than paid
the price of admission with sacrifices we hope others will never have
to endure. Most important, your members, tragedy by tragedy, have
together amassed a pool of knowledge, with institutional memory, that
the government does not have, and cannot replicate.
But what more can you do to
make yourselves more effective? You need a constant monitoring and
supply of worldwide data. Accidents, incidents, reports,
investigations, safety, security, a steady drumbeat of unassailable
evidence, collected like a clearinghouse. Available to safety
activists and just or even more important, the media. The media needs
your help to understand some of the issues, to quickly gather data
when the need arises or another disaster happens and to explain it to
the rest of the world. Evidence will beat Washington almost every time
because as investigations conducted by my former staff and I revealed,
the FAA often did not have data to back up its claims, or willfully
refused to generate the data, so it could have ultimate deniability,
as succinctly stated in a letter I received from the FAA.
This responds to your
Freedom of Information Request of May 22, 1997...Your request sought
accident, incident, pilot deviation, runway incursion and near midair
collision event counts and rates for individual airlines by year from
1991 through 1996. You attached certain documents prepared by the
Federal Aviation Administration to support your assertion that the FAA
has records of the information you are requesting.
A records search was
conducted in FAA Headquarters offices to locate both the rate
information and the runway data that you requested. Other than the
documents that you included with your request, no records were found
of this information and data, and we are unaware of any other FAA
offices likely to possess additional responsive records. The nine
charts attached to your request that are dated June 3, 1996 were all
calculated on a one-time basis in response to a specific request by
officials from the Department of Transportation's Office of Inspector
General when you were Inspector General. While the FAA made no effort
to prevent the public disclosure of the nine charts, the FAA would not
have been required to calculate rates and prepare the charts in
response to a request from the public. No records were found that
update those rate charts for 1996. The other document attached to your
request was calculated on a one-time basis for inclusion in a FAA
report prepared in May 1996. No record was found, however, that
updates that chart for 1996.
Sadly, the data and charts
to which the letter refers are those in the May 1996 report, dated 9
days before the ValuJet 592 crash, which warned on its cover that
ValuJet dominated the accident statistics.
Congressman Oberstar said he
could only spend so much time on a subject…. NADA can beat that.
And then there's the FAA's
McSweeney again, when presented with data and the issue of whether
Kapton and PolyX wire posed a danger to safety said, "Define
safety."
That was one definition even
the President did not need. Our government made sure the wire was off
Air Force One...but not off the planes the rest of us fly.
In fact the FAA has never
defined safety. I have an internal document in which the FAA reveals
that shortcoming. Safety, and more important for the FAA, the
statement that safety was not compromised, cannot be proved, because
it is what the FAA says it is. There is no objective standard, no
yardstick other than the cost benefit analysis, which yields
disastrous results, or even curious outcomes.
Did the FAA use the cost
benefit analysis before establishing the no peanut fly zones? They
claim their cost benefit analyses do not warrant buckling up kids
under two, but we will save their lives if they are allergic to
peanuts. How many kids have died or been hurt on planes because of the
FAA under 2 rules? How many people died because of inhaling peanut
air? Yet how many people have died due to inhalation of smoke and
fumes, yet we have no passenger PBEs? How many have died due to bad
wire, yet the FAA says safety has not been compromised? How many
people died because there were no defribilators on board. How many
people got tuberculosis on board? How many people died after catching
other serious illness because airlines have no clean air requirements
but federal prisons, and the FAA employees, do. Old or malfunctioning
black boxes, no 16 G seats, flammable and toxic interiors, no smoke
and fire detection and suppression systems, just plain bad plane
design and construction, get no action. Without a definition of safety
we sure get strange regulation.
Or maybe it's just that
pretzels are cheaper than peanuts.
NADA can define safety
better than that. After all, we consider our loved ones to be
priceless. So should the United States government.
