{"id":12201,"date":"2007-10-23T13:14:43","date_gmt":"2007-10-23T20:14:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2007\/10\/23\/fly-the-friendly-skies.html"},"modified":"2007-10-23T13:14:43","modified_gmt":"2007-10-23T20:14:43","slug":"fly_the_friendly_skies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/10\/23\/fly_the_friendly_skies.html","title":{"rendered":"Fly the Friendly Skies"},"content":{"rendered":"

A bizarre story going on here.  A few years back, NASA (which does do research into air safety in its “aeronautic” capacity) started a survey of pilots that came back with some very disturbing results, indicating that flight safety incidents were much more frequent <\/a>than other data from the FAA showed.<\/p>\n

\n

NASA’s survey, known officially as the National Aviation Operations Monitoring Service, started after a White House commission in 1997 proposed reducing fatal air crashes by 80 percent as of this year. Crashes have dropped 65 percent,  with a rate of about 1 fatality in about 4.5 million departures.<\/p>\n

Officials involved in the survey touted the unusually high response rate among pilots, 80 percent, and said they believe it is more reliable than reporting systems that rely on pilots to report incidents voluntarily.   “The data is strong,” said Robert Dodd, an aviation safety expert hired by NASA to manage the survey. “Our process was very meticulously designed and very thorough. It was very scientific.”<\/p>\n

[…] Pilot interviews lasted about 30 minutes, with standardized questions about how frequently they encountered equipment problems, smoke or fire, engine failure, passenger disturbances, severe turbulence, collisions with birds or inadequate tower communication, according to documents obtained by the AP.<\/p>\n

Pilots also were asked about last-minute changes in landing instructions, flying too close to other planes, near collisions with ground vehicles or buildings, overweight takeoffs or occasions when pilots left the cockpit.<\/p>\n

[…] Among other results, the pilots reported at least twice as many bird strikes, near mid-air collisions and runway incursions as other government monitoring systems show, according to a person familiar with the results who was not authorized to discuss them publicly.<\/p>\n

The survey also revealed higher-than-expected numbers of pilots who experienced “in-close approach changes” — potentially dangerous, last-minute instructions to alter landing plans.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Though the survey was supposed to be expanded from pilots to air traffic and ground crew personnel, NASA pulled the plug on the project (ostensibly because of budget shifts to the Mars program), and sat on the data for the last year.  The AP — which heard about the results — tried to get the study  released under the Freedom of Information Act, but NASA refused, citing this odd reason:<\/p>\n

\n

A senior NASA official, associate administrator Thomas S. Luedtke, said earlier that revealing the findings could damage the public’s confidence in airlines and affect airline profits. Luedtke acknowledged that the survey results “present a comprehensive picture of certain aspects of the U.S. commercial aviation industry.”<\/p>\n

“Release of the requested data, which are sensitive and safety-related, could materially affect the public confidence in, and the commercial welfare of, the air carriers and general aviation companies whose pilots participated in the survey,” Luedtke wrote in a final denial letter to the AP. NASA also cited pilot confidentiality as a reason, although no airlines were identified in the survey, nor were the identities of pilots, all of whom were promised anonymity.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

NASA then went further to make sure nobody would see it.<\/p>\n

NASA had directed its contractor Battelle Memorial Institute, along with subcontractors, on Thursday to return any project information and then purge it from their computers before October 30. […] Congress intervened Monday, saying it will launch a formal investigation and instruct NASA to keep all its data. [NASA [Administrator Michael] Griffin said he already was ordering that all survey data be preserved.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“People might get worried, and that would hurt the airline industry.”  A fine reason to suppress safety findings.  Yeesh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A bizarre story going on here.  A few years back, NASA (which does do research into air safety in its “aeronautic” capacity) started a survey of pilots that came back with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-law","category-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9599,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/05\/29\/buckle_up.html","url_meta":{"origin":12201,"position":0},"title":"Buckle Up!","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 29-May-06 6:24am","format":false,"excerpt":"Whilst off at Disney World, here's some advice to help keep you safer in the car. Buckle up, fergoshsakes! One out of every five drivers will be involved in a...","rel":"","context":"In "Disney\/Pixar"","block_context":{"text":"Disney\/Pixar","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/disney"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":46195,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/31\/risk-is-our-business.html","url_meta":{"origin":12201,"position":1},"title":""Risk Is Our Business"","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 31-Oct-14 3:44pm","format":false,"excerpt":"That's the way James Kirk put it. The real astronaut Gus Grissom phrased it this way, after the Gemini 3 mission in March, 1965::\"If we die, we want people to accept it. We are in a risky business and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13045,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/08\/10\/maybe_driving_at_christma.html","url_meta":{"origin":12201,"position":2},"title":"Maybe driving at Christmas is a better idea …","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 10-Aug-08 1:50pm","format":false,"excerpt":"We've actually begun discussing our trip to California over Christmas, pondering whether (given the cost and inconvenience of air travel) it might make more sense to drive out (bonus: more...","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","block_context":{"text":"Travel","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4289,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/09\/30\/i_find_your_lac.html","url_meta":{"origin":12201,"position":3},"title":"“I find your lack of faith distubing”","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 30-Sep-03 1:28pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Ouch. A voluntary \"climate survey\" of over 3,500 Air Force Academy cadets (out of 4,100) comes up with some disturbing results. Fewer than half of female cadets at the Air...","rel":"","context":"In "ZT & PC"","block_context":{"text":"ZT & PC","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/zt-pc"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":43380,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/relax-once-youre-at-the-gate.html","url_meta":{"origin":12201,"position":4},"title":"Relax once you're at the gate","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 7-Jul-14 12:36am","format":false,"excerpt":"Just in case you're one of those people who figure the risks of air travel are done once you're on the ground ...(h\/t +Asbj\u00f8rn Grandt)Reshared post from +Flightradar24Incident at Barcelona Airport caught on video. An UTair Boeing 767-300 was just about to land at Barcelona Airport when an Aerolineas Argentinas\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15588,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/08\/14\/saving-the-airline-animals.html","url_meta":{"origin":12201,"position":5},"title":"Saving the Airline Animals","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 14-Aug-09 7:58pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Republic has won the bidding for bankrupt Frontier Airlines, beating out Southwest.\u00a0 Republic improved its initial $108.75 million offer, removing pre-closing conditions and receiving antitrust clearance as part of submitting what was deemed the best offer for the bankrupt Frontier. The other suitor, Southwest Airlines, said its refusal to remove\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/frontier.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12201\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}