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Mr. JORDAN. In the short period before we were shut down we carried 285,000.

Mr. DUNCAN. But also, going in an opposite direction, you I'm sure have been very disturbed, upset, possibly even angry about some of the things that you have found out that your company has done that probably you didn't know about in regard to maintenance and some of the problems that the FAA has raised. I guess what I'm getting at is what have you learned from all of this. In other words, I don't want to hear now about what you've done right, what I want to know is what have you learned from all of this. You must have learned a great deal out of all of this experience. In fact, I'd say you could probably write a book based on this. I don't want you to write a book now, but tell me what you've learned from this. Mr. JORDAN. First, on behalf of the ValuJet people, thank you for the kind remarks about what they did in showing the concern for the families of the victims. One of the things I've done from the first moment is feel a strong responsibility to step up personally and take responsibility for the leadership of our company. The things that I have learned as reams and reams and reams of documentation have come out is certainly there are things in there that I want to see improved upon, things that we want to learn from. I have said repeatedly the only safety record that's acceptable is a perfect safety record. We don't have a perfect safety record and I won't go into great detail. But I think that one of the things that hurts the most is having grown up in the maintenance-engineeringtechnical operating side of the business is the very fact that we don't have perfection. If we go through all of these dozens and dozens and thousands and thousands of reports, I continue to believe that no airline could have gone through this degree of scrutiny. But I set that aside because I have responsibility only for ValuJet.

I'm proud of General Davis and his team. The burden is on us now to hand to the FAA documentation, certification, justification to approve ValuJet again. When we do, I believe it will be somewhat credible for you. I think you will be able to believe that we will highly likely have been held to the highest standard any airline ever has. We will take everything that we have done that is less than perfect in the safety arena, we'll fix it, we'll put preventive actions in place. I can go down item after item. When we taxi off a runway, that's not pleasing to me. If somebody uses a hammer when a Pratt & Whitney tool is called for, I'm not happy about that. When we do anything that is less than perfect in the arena of safety, I'm not happy with that. We will hold ourselves to the highest standard in this industry.

Mr. DUNCAN. Let me ask you this in that regard. Mr. LaHood asked you a while ago if you thought that you would get back open again and you optimistically stated that you hoped so. It has been widely reported in the press that you're losing $10 million for every month that you're not operating. I don't know how accurate that is but I've seen that figure in the press. In addition, I understand that you've had to pay $2 million or some figure like that to the FAA for the extra inspections that they've had to do. Is that correct?

Mr. JORDAN. That is correct, yes, sir.

Mr. DUNCAN. I'm sure the FAA wouldn't use this language, they would use more technical language, but if they came to you tomorrow and said what we're going to require of you is absolute certainty that you're operating the safest airline in the world, how soon do you think you could reasonably certify to the FAA or assure them that that's what you're going to be operating?

Mr. JORDAN. I firmly believe we can do it in less than 30 days because we have a major head start. Over 5,000 inspections on our company give us the ability to hand the FAA documentation they couldn't possibly have on any other airline. It will take a lot of hard work on our part and we're going to have to answer many, many questions. We'll redo every manual, we'll resubmit every organizational chart and every resume on every human being. I think it is doable and we're committed to doing whatever the FAA needs to see to certify us accordingly.

Mr. DUNCAN. You have hired General Davis, but would you make an offer to the FAA that they could hire any independent outside aviation consultant of their choosing to inspect your plan and your overall operation in order to assure the FAA that you did now have the safest airline in the world?

Mr. JORDAN. I would be more than pleased to do that. I asked General Davis to come aboard for one reason, he was someone that has impeccable credentials, an individual whose integrity is beyond reproach, someone I believed would give us a fair and unbiased unlimited overview of our safety. I didn't have the ability to ask the FAA to send somebody in; we had to act on our own. I think General Davis makes an outstanding safety czar. I'm very proud of him. If the FAA wants to send in an independent agency of their choosing to assist in our certification, I think I would have no choice it would be in our best interest to cooperate.

Mr. DUNCAN. All right. Thank you very much.

Mr. COLLINS OF GEORGIA. Will the Chairman yield?
Mr. DUNCAN. Yes, Mr. Collins?

Mr. COLLINS OF GEORGIA. I want to say that I have full confidence in Lewis Jordan and his staff to hand over the requirements that the FAA has presented to them in the consent order. He has told this committee today in the last few minutes that he hopes to be able to hand that over within a week to 10 days. Having talked with Administrator David Hinson last Thursday in my office, he, too, is looking forward to that documentation being handed over to the FAA. We have an event coming up in Atlanta, Georgia in July that the FAA Administrator understands very well that the services of ValuJet is going to be much needed. But those services will only be used upon certification and documentation of the safety of the airline. And I am confident that ValuJet will be back. in operation and will be operating as a safe airline. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for indulging me in this meeting today.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you for being here, Mr. Collins.

I want to thank our witnesses for being here today and for their excellent testimony.

That will conclude this hearing.

[Whereupon, at 7:09 p.m., the subcommittee adjourned, to reconvene subject to the call of the Chair.]

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
AND WITNESSES

Statement
of

Senator William S. Cohen

Before

the Subcommittee on Aviation

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
U.S. House of Representatives

June 25, 1996

Mr. Chairman, I would first like to thank you for the opportunity to appear before the Subcommittee today. Over the past year and a half, the Senate Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, which I chair, has been performing an extensive examination of the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) management and oversight of aviation safety.

Today, I would like to share with you some of the Subcommittee's findings and discuss some of the actions that I feel are needed to ensure that air travel remains the safest form of transportation. But first, I want to briefly discuss some of my specific concerns surrounding the May 11 fatal crash of ValuJet flight 592.

Over the past decade, weaknesses in the FAA's safety inspection program have been the focus of numerous government investigations, but the resulting hearings and reports never captured the full attention of the public or concern on the part of the FAA. The tragedy of the recent ValuJet crash has changed all that, focusing a harsh spotlight on the FAA's performance in ensuring air safety.

It is not my intent to try to establish cause or fault in the recent ValuJet crash. That is the responsibility of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Nor do I seek to denigrate the Clinton Administration and its officials. Inadequacies with the FAA's aviation safety program long predate this Administration.

I want to focus on the role and responsibility of government agencies charged with the duty to insure the traveling public's safety, and offer a few brief observations regarding the statements made by government officials following the ValuJet crash.

My concern is the adequacy of the FAA's certification and enforcement process and whether ValuJet should have been flying on May 11. As you know, since the ValuJet crash, a spate of memoranda, inspection reports, and studies have been released that clearly raise serious questions about the degree of ValuJet's compliance with aviation safety regulations prior to the crash.

In the days and weeks since the crash, Department of Transportation (DOT) and

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FAA officials have repeatedly made statements, such as: "We found no substantial safety shortcomings or regulatory violations;" "The airline is safe or otherwise we wouldn't allow it to fly;" and "We have not found a basis to shut them [ValuJet] down." Even ValuJet's recently hired safety czar stated that "We have found nothing so far to cause us to believe the airline is unsafe." I find these statements inconsistent with the information that has been available for some time to the DOT, FAA and ValuJet management.

More troubling were the statements made just last week by the Secretary of Transportation and the FAA Administrator when they were questioned as to why ValuJet was not shut down earlier and how they could have given ValuJet such glowing endorsements. The two senior officials stated that their earlier declarations about ValuJet's safety record were based on information available to them at the time those statements were made. However, when those statements were made, DOT and FAA had several documents in their possession that clearly questioned ValuJet's safety record and showed that the airline was not in full compliance with federal aviation regulations.

Specifically, DOT and FAA had an October 1994 FAA inspection report, a August 1995 DoD inspection report, a September 1995 FAA inspection report, two February 1996 memoranda from FAA to ValuJet senior management, a February 1996 FAA report, a May 2, 1996 safety analysis of low-cost air carriers, and a May 6, 1996 draft report on the FAA's special emphasis inspection.

A review of these FAA documents, as well as FAA inspection results since October 1993, clearly shows that ValuJet began having problems almost immediately after it began flying. For example, just seven days after ValuJet's first flight on October 26, 1993, an FAA inspector found ValuJet's operations manual and the general maintenance manual contained errors. Two months later, another FAA inspector found that ValuJet's De-Ice Program did not meet the requirements contained in the federal aviation regulations.

In September 1994, an FAA inspector found that a ValuJet aircraft made 148 flights while unairworthy (the aircraft had a leaking hydraulic system). And a February 1996 memorandum from the FAA to the President of ValuJet stated that the FAA had concerns that ValuJet was not meeting its duty to provide service with the highest possible degree of safety in the public interest as required by law. The memorandum further stated that ValuJet did not have a structure in place to handle its rapid growth, and that may have an organizational culture that is in conflict with operating to the highest possible degree of safety. Moreover, a February 1996 report prepared by three FAA inspectors recommended that the FAA consider having ValuJet go through an immediate recertification.

Notwithstanding these documents, the president of ValuJet issued a press release one month prior to the crash which stated in part, "ValuJet is known by the FAA to

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have an excellent record of self-audit, self-disclosure and voluntary efforts to achieve the highest levels of safety." The president further stated that “ValuJet's safety record is certifiably among the very best in the airline industry."

We know that the documents I previously described were available to DOT, FAA and ValuJet management. The Transportation Secretary and FAA Administrator either unintentionally misled the American people with assurances that were false or were misled by the false assurances of their own subordinates. In either case, truth became the first victim in the campaign to assure travelers that they had no cause for concern.

The Transportation Secretary's recent call for removing the promotion of air commerce from the FAA's mission and giving the agency a single mission of safety is long overdue. I strongly believe that we should take it a step further and remove the mission of promoting air commerce from DOT as well. The promotion of air travel should be left to the aviation industry.

As I mentioned earlier, deficiencies in the FAA's safety inspection program have been discussed numerous times during the past decade. These deficiencies are well documented and all of which the FAA, under various administrators, said would be corrected several years ago.

To illustrate, at the June 18 press conference when discussing ValuJet's use of contract maintenance, the Transportation Secretary stated that this method of maintenance operations was new and different and that the FAA must make adjustments in how it oversees these type operations. The FAA Administrator also stated that the use of contract maintenance was a new trend. However, in 1986 -- let me emphasize 1986 -- the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations held a hearing on airline safety. At that hearing, the FAA's Anthony Broderick testified that:

"Perhaps the biggest single problem our inspector work force has faced is
the management of new entrants. The proliferation of contract

maintenance has been difficult to deal with and has also caused a large
workload. We had to educate inspectors to the new ways of doing business
and to alert airline management to the complexities and problems that
such innovation could create."

Mr. Chairman, contract maintenance is not a new trend but an old problem that has gone unaddressed and unsolved.

Another issue related to the crash of ValuJet flight 592 is the FAA's apparent lack of standardization or what some may call "selective enforcement." The FAA Administrator has said that the recent grounding of ValuJet was based primarily on the results of the agency's 30-day intensive inspection program where some 2,000 inspections were performed. However, just last month, the FAA issued an emergency order

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