Airlines, FAA Ignore Safety Recommendations Says Study

by Robyn Wexler

The United States clearly has the safest commercial airline system in the world. In 1997 alone, more than eight million commercial flights safely carried more than 600 million passengers to their destinations in this country. Despite these glowing statistics, numerous permanent injuries and deaths still take place every year, many of which should be prevented.

Unfortunately, this is not just a case of media hype or unwarranted public hysteria. According to a recent study by the Center for Public Integrity, public airline safety within the United States has considerable room for improvement. And surprisingly, that's not even the bad news.

Passenger seats in a commercial airliner provide less protection than the average seat in a family car, according to the study. Despite a 1987 congressional order to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requiring that all seats in commercial passenger aircrafts be able to survive sixteen g's of force, the improvements never materialized. To date, the FAA requires the stronger seats only in the Boeing 777. Meanwhile, Congress has never followed up on their demand.

After the 1996 TWA Flight 800 explosion, it took nearly two years for the FAA to inspect U.S. airlines for deteriorated wiring. The connection should have been obvious. Back in the 1980's, the same type of wiring as as that of Flight 800's Boeing 747 had been removed from military aircrafts due to its dangerous tendency to deteriorate. Even more frightening: Both the FAA and Congress had "ample warnings about the risk to airline passengers for more than a decade but had chosen not to act," according to the study.

These examples of neglect and disregard are not isolated events. The FAA continues to ignore numerous recommendations made by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), more than one-third of which are included on the NTSB's web site as the "most-wanted list" of transportation safety improvements.

Yet another example: In 1988, after a fire that started in the cargo compartment of an American Airlines flight left 18 people injured, the NTSB recommended that fire- and smoke-detection systems be installed in the cargo compartments of all airliners. Nearly ten years later, this basic safety precaution has still not been heeded. The consequences of such inaction are undeniably too severe to be ignored. In May 1996, 110 people were killed in a ValuJet crash caused by a fire that started in the cargo compartment.

Due to its oversight responsibility over the FAA, the NTSB and the airline industry as a whole, the federal government plays the primary role in securing the public's safety while riding in the skies. In essence, it has the power to "set the public's agenda." Despite its claim to independent and objective oversight, the study found that Congress has repeatedly put the economic interests of the airline industry ahead of safety concerns.

The major discovery revealed by "In the Unlikely Event... The Politics of Airline Safety," is that Congress, the FAA and the airline industry have long been aware of these safety problems. Why then would they knowingly choose to ignore clear recommendations made on the behalf of the American public, which presumably include themselves and their loved ones? The answer leads us back to one of the best kept secrets of American business -- the political power of money.

Since 1987, the airline industry has invested more than $43.8 million in congressional campaigns. As far as the airline industry is concerned, the investment was clearly a good one. The industry has gone virtually unregulated.

Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN), the former chair of and current ranking Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, wins the prize for having received the most campaign money from the aviation industry. Since 1987, the total amounts to more than $303,000.

Members of Congress have long been induced to respond to the interests of those bearing the checks. Consequently, the American public's safety in the skies has clearly been compromised and sold to the highest bidder. And according to the evidence laid out in this study, Congress is ultimately to be held responsible.