The FANS key task is to get its multibillion-dollar modernization program for the air-traffic-control system back on track. The current equipment-from radios to tracking systems-is decades old and hard to repair. The FAA often proposes grandiose plans, then succumbs to cost overruns and poor management. It should speed the process of updating by buying off-the-shelf, ready-made computers and hiring enough software engineers to design and install the system.
A pet idea of Vice President Al Gore and Transportation Secretary Federico Pena, it would transfer the agency’s air-traffic-control facilities and equipment to a new body wholly owned by Uncle Sam and governed by a board of directors that would include government officials and industry representatives. The chief advantage of the plan would be to free the agency from a cumbersome procurement policy that requires congressional approval for major purchases. Instead, the FAA could buy state-of-the-art technology as it comes on the market, just like any normal business. But the Hill won’t relinquish the privilege easily; legislators often pressure the agency to make purchases that benefit constituents more than the cause of safety.
Back in the 1930s, the government charged the FAA’s predecessor, the Civil Aeronautics Administration, with the twin task of regulating and promoting aviation. As a result, when the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) makes a safety recommendation, the FAA sometimes warns that such changes would cause economic hardship for the airlines. The agency should concentrate full-time on setting and policing safety standards.
The NTSB has pushed for an upgrading of data-recording equipment that would allow safety experts to analyze patterns and problems on all flights, not just crashes, in order to prevent disasters. The cost: $20,000 to $70,000 per plane, depending on the model. British Airways and Air Portugal have followed this practice for years.
Fifteen people died after an American Eagle turboprop crashed last December near Raleigh, N.C. The probable cause: a pilot’s failure to respond correctly to an ignition warning light. The FAA must insist on rigorous and continuous training for pilots to ensure that they know how to use the latest equipment and why they need to follow critical procedures. The agency should also require carriers to make background checks of pilots to weed out those with a history of substance abuse or, as with the ill-fated turboprop’s captain, of documented incompetence.
The promised modemization plan may mean the system can do with fewer people. But until then, the FAA shouldn’t leave the system so understaffed, especially in major metropolitan areas like New York, where, according to an FAA official, more controllers are needed now. As air travel balloons-518 million passengers flew on U.S. commercial jets last year, up more than 8 percent over 1993- -the staffing problem becomes increasingly acute.
The FAA has been fighting this since the NTSB began suggesting them in 1989. The agency argues that requiring families to purchase tickets for their infants would encourage people to drive instead of fly, a statistically riskier form of travel. But a 1993 study by Apogee Research, a Bethesda, Md., consultancy, concluded that for about $60,000, airlines could reprogram reservation systems to hold the seat next to a traveling parent. Carriers could then provide approved child-restraining devices for a nominal cost.
Terrorist bombers have yet to target U.S. domestic flights - but they could soon discover how vulnerable American airlines are. The FAA should move faster to develop technology that can sniff out plastique explosives in baggage. In the meantime, it should at least mandate that carriers selectively X-ray checked luggage as well as carry-on bags and adopt the computer system in place now in Europe that allows checked baggage on a flight only after its owner has boarded.
These devices help pilots detect and avoid wind shear-the sudden, simultaneous changes in wind direction and speed that are a major cause of crashes like the USAir 1016 tragedy. The FAA has already bought 44 of them for commercial airports but has fully activated only three. Part of the delay: the constant bickering with local landowners over potential radar tower sites. Congress should instruct the agency, under eminent domain, to seize the land.
In a NEWSWEEK Poll, 71 percent of the respondents said they would pay higher airfares for safety improvements, and 94 percent claimed they would put up with delays or flight cancellations. Airlines should put those claims to the test by putting safety first, even if it requires a little more time or cost.
