Newsday reports today that the Federal Aviation Administration couldn't require commercial airliners to carry a system to prevent explosions like the one that doomed TWA Flight 800 until the technology became light enough, small enough and cheap enough. This happened after two "eureka" moments for researchers in 2002. Then came years of wrangling with the airline industry.
Fortunately all was settled in the nick of time, as the 12th anniversary of the TWA crash was about to roll around.
The acting FAA administrator, Robert Sturgell, greeted the new regulation on the day before the anniversary as "another step forward on what has been a long journey of investigation, discovery, innovation and cooperation."
His boss, Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, welcomed the FAA's achievement with a crash victim's brother at her side, as "a memorial to the victims and a tribute to dedicated public servants who have spent their lives making flying safer."
You can't complain about the outcome, but you might wonder about the timing and these folks' dedication to our safety.
Since the research was ready six years ago (perhaps on the anniversary of no significant event) and the parties had years to work out a deal, might the regulation have been ready to go, say, three days before the anniversary? Two months before? Seventeen months before?
Wouldn't federal and industry officials committed to the safest possible skies want to rush such a regulation into effect as soon as it was available? Why risk even one more midair explosion?
We've become so accustomed to the news being packaged for consumption and timed for maximum impact and availability of related video that nobody is even asking these questions.
Comments (1)
Oh no you don't. We have been asking "these questions" for the past year and more.
The Bobby Sturgell FAA: (A) continues to subject Americans to a steady stream of aircraft near-misses and near-disasters in epic numbers since Bobby Sturgell took over as Acting FAA Administrator almost a year ago; (B) tells us that it is OK for an agency and airlines working together to enlist publicists to tell Americans that air travel was never safer whilst planes are falling apart in un-inspected disrepair, aviation inspectors are criminally threatened by FAA management, and passengers are continually put in harm’s way; (C) is a revival of the Oberstar-decried, Schiavo-decried Tombstone Agency, the notion that ‘If the plane doesn't crash, we're doing great’; the notion that a federal agency is not required to anticipate and navigate around safety problems, but only react if there is a tombstone. The talent pool is deeper than this. There is more to leadership than wearing aviator glasses. We have an ugly aviation safety crisis on our hands. Let's wash our hands of it. Let’s wash our hands of Bobby Sturgell and his failed administration. The FAA’s cozy relationship with the airlines and the agency's abject failure to regulate must end NOW. We again ask all members of the United States Congress and American citizens to Just Say No to Bobby Sturgell.
Quiet Rockland
http://ejectsturgell.blogspot.com