Just yesterday the NTSB report came out regarding the Alaska Air crash (see articles under 'this and that' category)which accused the FAA of poor oversight. I applaud the NTSB for a candid and honest investigation. In the case of sr111, we are also aware that the FAA failed once again to act on known problems prior to the crash and their lack of oversight in regards to the entertainment system installed on this aircraft is absolutely appalling. I thought it would be appropriate to post the following article. The writer is Martin Aubury, from Australia and is often quoted in Air Safety Week. Just wanted to mention too that CASA is a reference to Australia's Safety Authority. The article talks about sr111 as well as other tragedies.

LAW AND PROFITS IN AVIATION
On 1
January the Civil Aviation Safety Authority relaxed the
rules by which it forces aircraft owners to fix faults.
This is not the first time that CASA has cut safety
standards but it is the worst change to impact on passenger
jets as well as private planes.

All
aircraft have faults. When one is widespread the
manufacturer develops a modification or special inspections
but rectification is optional unless the local
aviation authority issues an Airworthiness Directive.
Neither a foreign AD nor a manufacturer's instruction has
any legal effect in Australia until enforced by a
CASA directive.

The purpose of CASA's rule
change is to cut the number of ADs mainly by copying
those issued by the US Federal Aviation Administration.
CASA will not normally take preemptive action ahead of
overseas authorities and may sometimes allow extra time
for local operators to comply.

FAA is a
fatally flawed model because by law FAA considers the
commercial interests of airlines and aircraft manufacturers
as well as passenger safety.

When
EgyptAir flight 990 crashed in the North Atlantic on 31
October suspicion first focused on the plane's thrust
reverser. That was because the Boeing 767 and 200 like it
potentially had a lethal defect; a locking pin in the
reverser could be too short and the reverser might actuate
in flight making the plane almost impossible to
fly.

Probably the reverser did not the cause of the
EgyptAir crash, but the fault would have cost only $8632
to fix. Instead of ordering that this be done, the
crash happened while FAA was tediously negotiating
whether and when the modification should be
mandatory.

FAA is wrong to put hundreds of lives at risk for
$8632 and CASA is wrong to blindly copy.

The worst case of FAA inaction occurred on the
Douglas DC-10 aircraft. When the first aircraft was
pressure tested on the ground a cargo door blew open,
causing the floor above to collapse on to control cables
and jam them. A dispute ensued between Douglas and
the design sub-contractor over how extensive the
changes should be and who should pay for them.

In 1972, less than a month after the DC-10 went into
service an American Airlines flight from Detroit suffered
a nearly identical failure and it took exceptional
flying skill to land safely. Design changes had been
inadequate. The DC-10 should never have entered service with
a control system that could be disabled by loss of
a door.

FAA was aware of all this but
for political and economic reasons still took no
legal action, just told Douglas to "fix your God-damn
airplane".

Dan Applegate, Director of Product
Engineering at the sub-contractor wrote a notorious memo
which clearly set out the design faults of the door and
conveyed his grave doubts about the safety of the
aircraft. His warning was ignored, changes were minor, no
AD was issued and not all aircraft got modified.

Douglas sold a new but incompletely modified
aircraft that crashed near Paris, killing all 346 people
on board. Investigators found the rear cargo door
and six bodies several miles from the crash site. It
was a repeat of the two earlier failures.

Since then the legislation that controls the FAA
has been tightened. FAA is no longer required to
"foster" aviation and it is supposed to give primacy to
safety. Critics like Mary Schiavo in "Flying Blind,
Flying Safe" (Avon Books, 1997) and Andrew Weir in "The
Tombstone Imperative, the Truth About Air Safety (Simon and
Schuster, 1999) contend that little has improved; that
profit remains paramount and safety is
secondary.

Schiavo and Weir cite hundreds of examples.
Another more recent one was the crash of Swissair Flight
111, a year before EgyptAir 990 and in the same
general area. All were killed when fire broke out in the
cockpit of a MD-11 airliner.

Evidence emerged
that faulty wires may have ignited thermal insulation
blankets between the top of the cabin and the fuselage
skin. This was two years after the aircraft
manufacturer found that the particular type of blanket was
hazardous and urged replacement. No AD was
issued.

Since the accident it has become clear that most
other blankets also are too flammable. FAA proposed an
extensive and expensive refit but quickly yielded to
industry pressure and now only the worst blankets must be
replaced. Even this will take four years.

FAA
argues that replacing all blankets poses a bigger risk
than it solves because replacement may damage
surrounding wires. FAA's rationale for inaction is both
disingenuous and alarming. All blankets need to be removed
regularly for corrosion inspections; does FAA mean that
doing so is hazardous? At the very least whenever
blankets are removed they should be replaced with less
flammable ones.

The fire may be associated
with wiring for an entertainment system that provided
passengers with individual screens to watch movies or
gamble. Before the accident a US Congressional report
into in-flight gambling had extolled the safety of the
system and the thoroughness of FAA checks. Afterwards it
was found that the entertainment system was
hazardous. It has been banned by AD.

Unless an
accident happens, FAA routinely uses cost benefit analyses
to justify inaction. Accidents are so rare that it
is difficult to justify the cost of safety
enhancements in terms of lives saved - compounded by the
distasteful econometrics of putting a value on human
life.

A better way of assessing whether enhancements
should be done is to calculate their cost in terms of
cost per ticket. Then assess whether a "reasonable
passenger" would be willing to pay that extra. It is a much
easier hurdle than FAA's "cost per life saved" approach.

The cost of upgrading insulation blankets would
be around $2 per ticket. The cost of fixing
reversers on the Boeing 767 would be just a couple of
cents!

Time and again coroners, government
inquiries and accident investigators have criticized
aviation regulators for not issuing ADs to fix known
faults. Moreover, new entrant airlines and stiffer
competition make voluntarily compliance less likely than
ever.

So it is risky for CASA to cut the
number of ADs; and it could be fatal.