A NEW FLIGHT PLAN JUNE 19, 1996 TRANSCRIPT

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The Federal Aviation Authority has had its mandate changed. Once both a promoter and inspector of the nations airlines, those twin responsibilties have now been deemed in conflict and seperated. To look behind the rationale of this decision and explore other options to improve air safety, Charlayne Hunter-Gault is joined by the former chair of the National Transportation Safety Board and a former FAA official.

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MAY 13: The FAA administrator says ValuJet is safe, even through 109 died after one of its planes crashed Sunday. But the Department of Transportation inspector general has her doubts. DEC. 26: Computer malfunctions continue to plague Chicago O'Hare's air traffic control center. Elizabeth Brackett of public television station WTTW- Chicago reports on failures and delays.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Now for a look at the FAA and air safety from two veterans of the field: Michael Goldfarb was chief of staff and senior policy adviser at the FAA from 1987 to 1989, he now runs an aviation consulting firm; and Jim Burnett chaired the National Transportation Safety Board from 1981 to 1991. The Board investigates crashes and makes safety recommendations to the FAA. And starting with you, Mr. Burnett, what is your reaction in general to the sweeping changes that the FAA and Secretary Pena are proposing in mission and maintenance?

JIM BURNETT, Former Chairman, NTSB: (Little Rock) Well, I don't believe they are sweeping. I think the change in the FAA's mission is really unnecessary. The change in its charter will not accomplish anything substantially. I believe that the FAA has all the legislative authority it needs to do its job now. It has to have the will, starting from its leadership at the top and down through the agency. And I don't believe changing the charter will accomplish anything toward giving it that will.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: All right. Mr. Burnett--let me just get Mr. Goldfarb's reaction. Sorry, we'll come back to you in a second.

JIM BURNETT: Certainly.

MICHAEL GOLDFARB, Former FAA Official: Well, I think that's one area we may agree, that I don't think they're sweeping changes. I think they were important changes to restore public confidence in flying, but I disagree that they have the legislative and the structure in place to allow them to accomplish their oversight mission. They do a remarkably good job, given the constraints. Constraints are what's important. They're a government bureaucracy. They're subject to the whims of Congress. They don't have the budgets. They don't have the ability to respond quickly. Deregulation changed this industry, and the FAA's ability to keep paces with those changes in the 80's and then complicated by a ValuJet. No one anticipated a ValuJet and the way they do business. And so the ability of the FAA--

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Excuse me. What do you mean by that, the way--

MICHAEL GOLDFARB: Nobody anticipated that, the--outsourcing a significant portion of your maintenance to many, many different firms. So for the FAA to provide the oversight of that kind of situation requires an ability to respond quickly. I think the changes announced yesterday probably begin that process, but I think ultimately the FAA has to structurally change to allow it to keep pace with commercial aviation.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: So you disagree with Mr. Burnett that the FAA doesn't have the will to make the changes?

MICHAEL GOLDFARB: Absolutely. I think there's the will. I think there--as frustrated in the FAA as Mr. Burnett was at the NTSB in the 80's, with the slow pace of reform. Let's take the example of aviation safety and being strong on safety. It takes a year to get a safety regulation through the bureaucracy because every public interest group has to comment on that safety regulation. So the ability to get technology into air traffic control facilities, to put new cockpit avionics on that improve wind shear takes time in a government agency. I think the FAA does a good job giving those constraints.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: All right. I want to get to the specifics in a minute, but let me just go back to you, Mr. Burnett, and get you to respond to Mr. Goldfarb, who just said it's the structure and not the will that's the problem.

JIM BURNETT: Well, I would disagree with that. I think the FAA has had plenty of opportunity to take the steps that would have avoided the ValuJet accident by requiring heat detection systems and fire suppression systems for all aircraft cargo holds. And we learned of a need for that years ago, and under circumstances very similar to this accident. Yet, the FAA did not avail themselves of the opportunity to take steps. It does take a long time to get regulations through. That's the reason that you should start properly. And we've yet to see the FAA announce substantive reforms that should have been made to avoid this accident, but certainly already ought to be in process in the aftermath.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Goldfarb, what, what changes did you hear in the changes that were announced that you think are substantive and will be most significant in making the changes that you think need to be made?

MICHAEL GOLDFARB: I think the very way in which the airlines outsource their maintenance, and many carriers do this. This is not peculiar to the ValuJet. I think what the FAA is saying, that the kind of surveillance on the process of subcontracting will change, that every carrier will, in fact, have every record reviewed, or have the subcontractors qualify. I think that's a sea change in attitude. I think it's a very significant change. And that probably is the most significant, but more importantly, it restores accountability and confidence that from the top to the safety inspector--and by the way, in terms of promotion, if you ever met an FAA safety inspector, it's hard to believe that they're into promotion of aviation. They're very tough on the airlines, and the airlines often complain that they're, in fact, too tough. So I think significantly the oversight of the subcontracting, the contracting out of the maintenance is probably the most important change.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Do you disagree with that, Mr. Burnett?

JIM BURNETT: I, I think that they could--that really they're missing the point in, in that the inspection system worked in this case.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: You mean in the case of ValuJet?

JIM BURNETT: They've identified the problems at ValuJet. They had a recommendation for recertification, and somewhere in the higher reaches of the agency--and I don't know whether this information got to administrator Hinson or not, but somewhere that was lost, and there was a lack of the, of the political will to, to take steps in relation to ValuJet.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: So you're saying this change won't make that much difference?

JIM BURNETT: I don't believe that anything they have announced so far will make a lot of difference. I think it slows down--it diverts attention, and I think in part it's done in hopes that public attention will wane as to this issue, and they won't have to do anything. I think the, the real, what would be good damage control, in my estimation, would be some substantial reforms. And there are several very important issues out there that the FAA needs to be moving on and could move on and could maybe convince the people that they are willing to protect the passengers, rather than the airlines, and that would re-establish public confidence.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: But--

JIM BURNETT: I hope that nothing that they're doing right now would, would fool the public into re-establishing confidence.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: But you don't agree when--I mean, Sec. Pena said he thinks now he--recommending now that the FAA concentrates solely on safety--

JIM BURNETT: Well, I think that's been their primary mission for a long time. I think as long as they have the air traffic control system, they can't ignore the promotion of, of aviation, and I don't think there's that much conflict between the promotion of aviation and providing for aviation safety. So I think the period of time that it takes for the Congress to change the charter and perhaps establishing two aviation agencies with the increased expense will not solve our problem. And I think we would move toward solving our problem, that the administrator would tell his staff. We are now going to move toward aggressive enforcement of aviation for the very reason that Mr. Goldfarb pointed out. We now have competitive airlines and a very rapid change. And you have to have aggressive enforcement, aggressive surveillance, and then the will to enforce when you find problems.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Goldfarb, what do you think about the issue of the compatibility of safety and promoting safety, as well as commerce, is that--

MICHAEL GOLDFARB: I never felt that was really a problem. I agree with Mr. Burnett in that I think it'd be kind of a nightmare to separate out and have one agency only concerned with safety. You know, let's go back to Mr. Burnett's comment about the NTSB recommendation on fire suppression systems. At the time, every regulation requires FAA to do a cost-benefit analysis. It was deemed that it would cost about a third of a billion dollars. And suppose there were three of those recommendations. That's a billion dollars. Now we didn't have the crash. On hind sight now one can make the question: Should we have? So it's a billion dollars to the traveling public that the airlines will pass on for the price of the ticket. If the concern is that air travel be affordable and accessible, it's the balance between that safety equation and the ability to keep planes flying in the system. And I think the American people would want that balance. The question is: Do we have the balance? I think the steps made yesterday will help restore it. I never felt it was that out of kilter to begin with.

JIM BURNETT: The bottom line on that analysis is we have to wait for the crash before we have the evidence that will allow us to implement the reform. What the Safety Board said is we had a near disaster in Nashville in 1988, and that ought to have been evidence enough. We ought not to have to wait for people to die in a crash in order to have proof that we need to take this very important reform.

MICHAEL GOLDFARB: Ultimately, you have to be able to have a court of law to sustain the action. But the FAA has to decide whether a carrier's airworthy. You could have lots of incidences and lots of potential accidents, but if you don't have the information that would allow the FAA to say the plane isn't airworthy, that's, that's the problem.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Goldfarb, you said that there were some--several things that needed to be done to really make a difference. What are they, briefly?

MICHAEL GOLDFARB: I think you meant Mr. Burnett.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: I'm sorry. Mr. Burnett.

JIM BURNETT: Well, I believe if the FAA would concentrate its accident investigation and incident investigation staff in an organization that does not report through the rest of the bureaucracy, that reports directly to the administrator, that that would be an important organic step as far as the organization of the agency is concerned. I repeat that I think that I would be impressed if they were to announce the adoption of fire suppression measures that need to be in the cargo holds. I would be impressed if they would announce the implementation of the NTSB recommendations to have high parameter flight data recorders in these 737's. We've had two unsolved accidents, and we may have a third and still not be able to solve it for the lack of, of the data recorders. And that needs to be done on an expedited basis.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: All right.

JIM BURNETT: Those things which the airlines are opposed to, adoption of those things would help convince me that we have an administrator and a secretary of transportation that are really concerned about, about protecting the passengers. And that would be good damage control.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Briefly, do you agree with those?

MICHAEL GOLDFARB: I agree with some of that. I think that flight data recorders, everybody wants the more modern one to learn from accidents. Even that reform, it would take a year or two to get that through. Where I have a problem is that having accident investigation people report right to the administrator is a real disincentive for them to share with the operational people every day the problems of the safety of the aircraft.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Finally, how concerned should Americans be now? I mean, should any of their anxieties about the FAA and the friendly skies, so-called, be relieved at this point?

MICHAEL GOLDFARB: Well, I don't believe that, you know, it's the safest mode of air travel. The statistics mean nothing when you have a crash. So I don't believe we have a major safety problem. I think the FAA was trying to say to the public that these steps increase the confidence that they can continue their surveillance.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Very briefly, Mr. Burnett.

JIM BURNETT: I think what we've seen in the last few weeks in relation to ValuJet does not inspire public confidence about the FAA's ability to protect the safety of the system, and that is we see the traffic grow toward peak levels that we'll--we'll see more unfortunate events.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: All right. Well, sorry to have to end it on that note, but we do. Thank you both.

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