HOLDING PATTERN
Safety Pushes Stall at Embattled FAA

By ANDY PASZTOR and CHRISTOPHER CONKEY
June 26, 2008; Page A1

In July 1996, a fuel-tank explosion ripped apart TWA Flight 800, killing all 230 people aboard and sparking an urgent call from air-safety experts to find a fail-safe way to avoid a repeat tragedy.

Twelve years later, they're still waiting.

Experts quickly and broadly agreed that like TWA 800's main fuel tank, those on thousands of other planes were at risk of exploding during normal operations if hot vapors became exposed to sparks or electrical short-circuits. Within months, federal investigators at the National Transportation Safety Board called for a sweeping retrofit of planes with "fundamentally flawed" fuel-tank designs. Independent safety experts called such changes essential.

Associated Press

Acting FAA chief Robert Sturgell

But the issue has bogged down for more than a decade inside the Federal Aviation Administration, the agency charged with regulating U.S. airlines. Manufacturers argued the proposed fix was unnecessary, while carriers called it marginal and too expensive. They repeatedly persuaded the FAA to delay, revise or scale back its plans. While the industry has reduced the danger of fuel-tank accidents, whatever "foolproof" plan the agency ultimately imposes will come too late to affect many jetliners now in service.

The fuel-tank issue is just one of the major initiatives to stall at the FAA, which finds itself in the spotlight following a series of safety lapses that came to light this spring. Even when change is clearly needed, critics say, the agency can be reluctant to challenge the industry's strongly held positions.

The FAA has failed to make good on longstanding promises to quickly modernize air-traffic control systems and to institute effective technology to prevent aircraft from colliding on busy runways. In 1995, the FAA proposed sweeping changes to address chronic pilot fatigue. Airlines resisted, and 13 years later, the FAA is still waiting for carriers and pilot unions to reach compromises on crew scheduling.

Failure to take an aggressive stand on some of the toughest safety issues could end up costing lives, critics say. Too often, they say, the agency is hobbled by bureaucratic inertia and a lack of political will, with FAA leaders more focused on cooperative efforts than on taking a hard line on a change-resistant industry.

"The FAA, on so many of these issues, has just been dragging its feet," says Jim Hall, who served under President Clinton as chairman of the NTSB, the independent board that makes recommendations to the FAA and other transport agencies. "There's just no reason that the [FAA] administrator isn't pushing the envelope on getting these things done."

Agency leaders and their backers counter that the FAA is the recognized "international gold standard" for aviation safety. While they say there's no silver bullet to counter all human and technical risk, the agency has made major gains on some fronts and has dealt smartly with complex issues once reliable fixes become apparent. Robert Sturgell, the FAA's acting administrator, told an industry conference earlier this month that the agency continues to push cutting-edge initiatives. "We cannot be complacent with past success," he said.

The FAA says early solutions to the fuel-tank problem weren't viable. On pilot fatigue, senior agency official Peggy Gilligan says the FAA is pushing carriers and their crews to revise schedules voluntarily: "If this could easily be solved by rulemaking, I assure you I would have done it by now."

The agency says the most effective way to regulate the airline industry is to work in close partnership with it, rather than handing down directives. It's in carriers' own interest, after all, to avoid accidents. And fatal airline accidents in the U.S. are at historic lows: On a three-year average, U.S. airlines have suffered one fatal accident for roughly every 15 million departures. The last major crash of a big jetliner occurred nearly seven years ago.

"You don't fly 600 million passengers a year without a single fatality and then conclude the industry has a lax safety record," says Randy Babbitt, an aviation consultant and former pilot-union leader.

Still, the shortcomings of the FAA's partnership approach became apparent earlier this year. In March, the FAA proposed a record $10.2 million penalty against Southwest Airlines Co., after revelations that the carrier had missed mandatory maintenance work. Shortly afterward, FAA whistleblowers alleged that cozy ties between the airline and some local inspectors had allowed the carrier to keep these planes flying. A few weeks later the FAA also found maintenance lapses at AMR Corp.'s American Airlines, forcing the carrier to cancel thousands of flights over several days.

'Don't Talk'

From the dawn of the jet age five decades ago, the FAA played a traditional oversight role. It issued rigid operating rules and emphasized plane inspections, essentially sending safety employees to look over mechanics' shoulders for violations.

The relationship with carriers was sometimes adversarial. Airline managers posted signs in hangars reading, "Don't talk to the FAA," says Mr. Sturgell, the current acting administrator.

In 1996, two high-profile crashes exposed the limits of the agency's combative approach. That May, a Valujet Airlines plane crashed into the Florida Everglades after a cargo-compartment fire. TWA 800 went down two months later. Both accidents had their roots in types of hazards inspectors had overlooked.

Afterward, FAA leaders began shifting toward a more proactive approach. While agency inspectors continue to examine aircraft, today airlines bear primary responsibility for policing their own compliance with safety rules. The FAA now focuses on cooperating with airlines -- gathering and analyzing mountains of data from in-flight computers, voluntary pilot-incident reports, air-traffic-control tapes and other sources. The goal is to spot and resolve potential hazards before they can cause crashes.

Without such joint efforts, the agency would have access to "only about 5% of the data that's out there" to do its job, says Nicholas Sabatini, the FAA's top safety official.

But the new FAA has proved slow to address some old nagging issues.

Shortly after fuel vapors deep inside TWA's Boeing 747 jumbo jet were ignited by an electrical short or high-voltage surge, the NTSB rocked the industry with its criticism of standard fuel-tank design. For decades, the goal had been eliminating potential sources of sparks. Now the NTSB advocated greater safeguards: Even if sparks occur, they shouldn't be able to cause explosions.

The safety board called for outfitting thousands of jetliners with a system that would pump inert nitrogen gas inside the tanks, reducing oxygen levels and snuffing the chances of an explosion. Military aircraft were already using similar techniques.

The industry pushed back. Boeing Co. called the NTSB's recommendations technically questionable and too costly, and argued for further research. The Aerospace Industries Association, a U.S. umbrella group representing a broad swath of aviation and space companies, said there was nothing to justify changing a fuel-tank design "that has been used successfully for decades." Instead, the industry vowed to inspect the fuel systems of some 2,000 aircraft world-wide.

The FAA was generally sympathetic. Past studies have shown that "the cost of these systems is prohibitive," the agency said in April 1997. Nevertheless, it pledged to explore alternatives.

More than a year later, an FAA-sponsored study group found that installing onboard devices could cost airlines more than $20 billion over a decade -- $3 million or more per plane for equipment, installation and maintenance. For the next few years the issue bounced around study groups and government-industry panels, while the FAA continued seeking more realistic and cheaper measures.

170 Mandates

The debate regained urgency in March 2001, when a Thai Airways International jet exploded while parked at a gate in Bangkok, killing one flight attendant. Investigators determined that hot weather and prolonged use of air-conditioning systems located under a sparsely filled center fuel tank had heated volatile vapors. These were touched off by a spark from a fuel pump.

That summer, determined to attack the problem without ordering a sweeping retrofit, then-FAA Administrator Jane Garvey said it was "time for a new approach." She called for more frequent inspections and upgrades to wiring, pumps and other electrical systems. By targeting ignition points, the program eventually grew to some 170 specific mandates to reduce potential explosion risks.

Industry leaders reluctantly supported the drive. But it soon became clear that the repetitive wiring checks and modifications, while cheaper than installing nitrogen systems, could cost the industry hundreds of millions of dollars. The number of potential ignition sources "stunned me beyond belief," says John Hickey, the FAA's point man on aircraft certification.

Despite industry howls against additional costs, Mr. Hickey ordered FAA researchers to keep looking for a fail-safe solution. In late 2002, with Boeing's support, FAA scientists unveiled a prototype nitrogen-generating system that would cost a fraction of earlier proposed versions. After flight tests in 2003, airlines gave the 200-pound system good reviews, saying it wouldn't reduce fuel efficiency.

In early 2004, then-FAA chief Marion Blakey announced she would propose retrofit rules affecting roughly 3,800 aircraft. That was followed by more than a year of consensus-building within the 45,000-person agency. In late 2005, the FAA chief released a formal proposal covering about 3,200 aircraft. Its projected cost to airlines came to roughly $250,000 per plane over decades of operation.

European plane-manufacturer Airbus has opposed the plan, arguing its jets are less susceptible than Boeing planes to tank explosions. The Department of Transportation and the White House Office of Management and Budget -- which is still reviewing the proposal -- challenged whether the benefits would be worth the cost.

The agency's deliberations have been further hampered by personnel shifts. The FAA has been run by an acting chief for about a year -- Mr. Sturgell, a Republican, has been caught up in partisan election-year skirmishes -- making it harder for the agency to push expensive safety programs.

Though airline resistance continues, the FAA's mandate for new fuel-tank devices is slated for release as early as July. It is expected to cover about 1,000 fewer aircraft than were in initial proposals.

Meanwhile, market forces have generated other solutions. Boeing, an early opponent of nitrogen-inerting devices, more than a year ago made them optional on certain planes but found no takers. Boeing is now poised, on its own, to start making the technology standard equipment on new aircraft, beginning with twin-engine 737s before the end of the year. The manufacturer won't disclose costs.

Most Wanted

The fuel-tank issue has a near-permanent place on the list of "Most Wanted" transport-safety dangers the National Transportation Safety Board compiles each year. Another issue that has been a fixture on the NTSB's Top 10 list since 1990 is the specter of runway collisions.

Runway incursions -- close calls between taxiing aircraft and those landing or taking off -- are among the top safety concerns in the U.S. and internationally. As air traffic soared and airports grew busier, the number of close calls ticked upward in the late 1990s before jumping nearly 25%, to 405, in the year ending September 2000.

"That is the thing that keeps me up at night," says NTSB chairman Mark Rosenker.

In 2000, many domestic airports -- even the largest -- lacked special programs or equipment to guard against collisions. Afterward, the FAA moved aggressively to establish regional runway safety offices that worked with airports to add improved signs and lighting on runways and taxiways. The agency advocated development of ground radars that could alert controllers of potential incursions. It also studied risks at individual fields, even supporting bans on jets being towed without escort vehicles at Los Angeles International Airport.

By the 2003 fiscal year, the number of near-misses dropped to 323, a level seen in the late-1990s. But the successes were fleeting. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, by mid-2007 the FAA had cut its runway-safety office staff by almost half, to 37. The office went without a permanent director for more than two years.

Currently, only 12 airports have received ground radars, out of an initial target of 35. Early models were seen as unreliable: Agency and industry officials say air-traffic controllers sometimes disregarded or turned them off to avoid distractions from false alerts during thunderstorms or other low-visibility times -- exactly the conditions when technology is most needed.

"In recent years, the FAA's Office of Runway Safety has not been fulfilling its mission," the GAO said in a report last November. "The absence of coordination and national leadership impedes further progress."

Mr. Sturgell counters that the FAA accelerated industry efforts with a 2007 "call to action." The agency, he says, "wants to move the chains forward" by studying why pilots and controllers make mistakes and employing readily available technology, including cockpit displays and computer-controlled ground lighting to warn crews when runways are in use.

Nonetheless, late last year the rate of serious incursions per million flights jumped fourfold from a year earlier, indicating that pilots and controllers once again were "starting to get a bit complacent," says Henry "Hank" Krakowski, the FAA's top traffic control official. Top FAA officials contacted airline CEOs, he says, to "crank up the attention to the highest accountable level."

Since then, the rate of serious incidents has declined. But even some FAA stalwarts say the agency's overall system of cooperation is under siege. "Trust has broken down between the FAA's work force and the airlines," says Tony Broderick, a former high-ranking agency official who is now an industry consultant. In light of the congressional and public uproar over the FAA's recent enforcement missteps, Mr. Broderick says: "It's hard to informally talk about dealing with problems, when everybody is scared to death about being investigated."

Write to Andy Pasztor at andy.pasztor@wsj.com¹ and Christopher Conkey at christopher.conkey@wsj.com²