Despite advances, more
must be done
|
Jim Hall
|
By JIM HALL
Published: Tuesday,
10/30/07
Today, there is unprecedented activity
in our skies. Between commercial airlines, private aircraft, cargo
transportation, and very light jets, flying has never been a more
popular or more diversified mode of transportation.
It is no small accomplishment that the
aviation industry, working with the National Transportation Safety Board
and Federal Aviation Administration, has successfully reduced fatal
accidents by 65 percent over 10 years.
The decade-long overhaul of aviation
safety began with a national commission founded in response to the TWA
800 and ValuJet accidents of 1996. Led by Vice President Al Gore, the
commission set a goal to cut the rate of fatal accidents by 80 percent
within 10 years. As chairman of the NTSB 1994-2001, I had the honor to
serve on the Gore commission and assist in developing these
recommendations.
However, are we doing enough today to
ensure the highest level of safety in the skies? The answer,
unfortunately, is no. Although many advances have been made in the past
10 years, currently there are dangerous trends in the aviation industry
that stand to jeopardize this progress.
Air-traffic controllers
leaving
For example, the air-traffic controller
staffing crisis has industrywide consequences, including more and longer
flight delays and an increased use of mandatory overtime that results in
an exhausted and burned-out work force.
According to the National Air Traffic
Controller Association, there were 856 retirements in fiscal year 2007,
(7.4 percent of the controller work force), leaving the country with
both a 15-year low in the number of fully certified controllers and a
surplus of new hires — many with no air-traffic control experience or
education.
Moreover, a lack of adequate funding and
implementation of the FAA's Next Generation Air Transportation System, a
technology upgrade scheduled for 2025, will only add to the risks in
this field.
Air-traffic controllers are not the only
ones retiring. Pilot staffing levels are dangerously low as a result of
baby boomers reaching retirement age, raising analogous concerns of an
influx of inexperienced and insufficiently trained pilots.
It was alarming to learn recently that a
decade after the Gore commission called for the establishment of the
National Aviation Operations Monitoring Service program, NASA is
attempting to withhold and destroy the results of an $8.5 million,
taxpayer-funded safety study, citing the need to maintain public
confidence and the commercial welfare of the air carriers. From an
aviation safety perspective, the suppression of this data runs counter
to a strong safety culture.
Transparency and oversight are the
foundation upon which aviation safety has been built. We take solace in
the fact that lives are not lost in vain if what we learn from past
accidents helps prevent future accidents.
It is time for the federal government
and the aviation industry to focus on — and not hide — the next
generation of risks. A failure to respond to new hazards endangers the
safety culture that we have worked so hard to create.
Published:
Tuesday, 10/30/07
