COHEN QUESTIONS WHY FAA DID NOT ACT SOONER ON VALUJET; WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Senator Bill Cohen, R-Maine, today questioned why the Federal Aviation Administration allowed ValuJet to fly last month when the agency had information challenging the airline's safety record, and he outlined a series of steps necessary to ensure that air travel remains safe. Cohen is chairman of the Governmental Affairs Oversight Subcommittee, which has held two hearings during the past year on aviation safety. His remarks came in testimony today before the House Transportation Subcommittee on Aviation, which held a hearing on safety issues raised by the crash of ValuJet flight 592 in the Florida Everglades May 11. Cohen expressed deep concern about the FAA's safety certification and enforcement process and charged that statements by top officials of the FAA and the Department of Transportation asserting ValuJet's safety were inconsistent with information they had in hand. The Senator cited eight documents in the possession of the FAA that clearly questioned ValuJet's safety record and showed it was not in full compliance with federal regulations. "We know these documents were available to DOT, FAA and ValuJet management," Cohen said. "The Transportation Secretary and the 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." According to the documents, problems were uncovered with ValuJet almost immediately after it began flying and numerous others were discovered in subsequent months and years: The airline's operations and general maintenance manuals contained errors, its de-ice program did not meet requirements, one ValuJet aircraft made 148 flights with a leaking hydraulic system rendering it un-airworthy, and the airline had many other documented shortcomings that called its safety into question. Nevertheless, Cohen said, DOT and FAA officials repeatedly made statements asserting ValuJet's safety. The FAA's failure to act and acknowledge its shortcomings, the Senator said, "is indicative of a managerial culture that denies problems exist, defends the status quo and uses public relations spins to deflect criticism." To ensure that air travel remains the safest form of transportation, Cohen called for a number of changes, including elimination of the FAA's dual mission of promoting air commerce and ensuring aviation safety. The dual mission, he said, poses an inherent conflict and the FAA should concentrate solely on its safety role. He also called on the FAA to: Embrace constructive criticism and address managerial or oversight deficiencies rather than attempting to deflect criticism. • Discontinue concealing unfavorable or critical internal analyses and make full disclosure so the public can make informed decisions about air travel. Stop making cosmetic changes that simply mask underlying deficiencies. • Hold managers and inspectors accountable for the quality of their inspections. Cohen noted that the Transportation Secretary had recently outlined a number of initiatives to strengthen aviation safety, such as hiring 91 new inspectors, speeding modernization of a new inspection tracking system that relies on old unreliable data and further review of the inspection training program. But, he said, “real reform will only be achieved when the FAA acknowledges its problems, changes its culture and takes meaningful corrective action. "The federal government has a duty to insure that thousands of innocent and trusting travelers do not experience the same horrible fate as those who perished in the Everglades.” ### CHALLENGE 2000 Recommendations for Future Aviation Safety Regulation U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Aviation June 25, 1996 by Martin J. Bollinger Vice President BOOZ ALLEN & HAMILTON INC. 101 Park Avenue New York, NY 10078 212/551-6767 SUMMARY The current approach to aviation regulation and certification has its origin in the challenges facing a developing, U.S. national, highly regulated aviation and airline industry in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It has proved highly successful and is the model for the rest of the world. Nonetheless, sufficient change has occurred, and will occur over the next 15 years, that a new model is warranted in order to achieve the simultaneous objective of driving the accident rate toward zero and doing so in a fiscally constrained environment. The four recommendations that encompass the proposed new model are: Shift the role between the FAA and industry so that the FAA takes a Organize the FAA's certification and regulation resources through Restructure the rule making process to streamline and improve the Re-engineer the day-to-day operations of the FAA in the area of Many of the proposed changes are reflected in programs already underway within the FAA. At the same time, most of these internal initiatives represent ad hoc or limited activities which do not, even in aggregate, represent a shift in operations consistent with the proposed vision. The challenge for the FAA is to make these discrete initiatives part of a wholesale restructuring of the FAA's approach to regulation and certification, consistent with the recommendations above. It should take three to five years to implement such a change program. |