WRITTEN BY GUEST CONTRIBUTOR CADY STANTON
The public was made privy to many details about the crash of Colgan Air flight 3407, which killed 50 people near Buffalo, New York, in February, details that were revealed during a three-day public hearing conducted by the National Transportation Safety Board in mid-May. We also gained some frightening insight into the operations of Colgan Air and the commuter air segment of the airline industry.
As one who flies a good deal, especially on commuter or regional jets, I’m glad to know that we’ll get a conclusive report about the fate of flight 3407 and that changes may be coming to the operations of commuter flights generally, if need be. I doubt that I’m alone on this score, but I’d guess I’m in the minority in considering the reason that all these details were openly disclosed before the public.
Every time a jet goes down, even where there’s no loss of life, the investigation of the incident is immediately handed over to a neutral, disinterested third party, one that has no financial stake in the outcome and whose only allegiance is to an accurate assessment of what went wrong. That disinterested third party is, yes, the government.
Because it’s become so fashionable in some political circles to rail against The Government, I tried to imagine what would be different if we eliminated the Federal Aviation Administration and the NTSB’s role in the airline industry. (The latter’s reach extends beyond aviation.)
Airline accidents would, of course, still be investigated, because the industry is as interested in safe flight as is the flying public. The investigative body would probably be the product of a voluntary association comprising the industry players. That body would hire, and compensate, the individuals charged with conducting the investigations. A cottage industry would likely emerge, as companies compete with each other for contracts from the industry to make the necessary inquiries and produce final reports on the causes of the accidents.
Laissez faire and anti-government types would probably embrace this template, or something like it. No government, no tax dollars, no problem.
Realistically speaking, however, a self-regulated airline industry would never work, at least not as well as the system we have now. In the first place, the industry can’t afford it. In its FY2009 budget estimate, for example, the FAA sought $9.8 billion to fund various aspects of its operations that are dedicated to safety, including aircraft inspections and the hiring and training of air traffic controllers. Take that away and the industry has three choices: cut costs, raise fares or compromise safety.
Indeed, it’s doubtful that the airlines themselves would advocate a repeal of either the subsidy or the outsourcing of safety regulation to the government. Besides the financial considerations, the industry doesn’t want the fear factor playing a role in the consumer’s decision-making when booking a flight.
Another problem is the public’s confidence in private, industry-led investigations. Most of us are completely unfamiliar with such a concept because FAA and NTSB involvement has been a part of the process for so long we barely think about, or even notice, it. We take for granted that hearings will be open to the public and the press, that accident reports will be publicly disclosed and, failing that, subject to Freedom of Information Act requests. Would the public accept a different regime? I, for one, don’t think so and I’d like to see the Gallup or Harris people make such an inquiry. I think it’s notable that a catastrophic accident doesn’t scare people away, en masse, from flying. Would the same be true if we fully privatized airline safety and put it in the hands of, say, Enron’s Jeff Skilling, Lehman Brothers’ Dick Fuld, or Tribune mogul Sam Zell?
The founding fathers intended that one goal of the Constitution is to promote the general welfare. Surely aviation safety, including the safety of those on the ground, fits within this goal. The government’s role levels the safety playing field within the industry, allowing the airlines to compete based on routes and fares. Yes, we pay for this regime with our tax dollars, and, no, it isn’t perfect, but the alternative would doubtlessly be worse and cost much more.
I think we agree that we should not get rid of the FAA, but I would go further and say that I believe the government investigators do take pride in finding the true answers to how the incident happened. The bigger problem is when we find what we need to do to solve the issue, we bulk on the up front costs, even if the overall costs over the years would actually be reduced. It has been decades that I seem to remember experts stating that we need to update our air-traffic-control systems and I know there are other things that we know are issues, but do not want to burden the airline or public with the costs.
I believe in full disclosure. I believe if there are things that should be fixed and we decide to take the risks by delaying the changes, or not making the changes at all, this should be disclosed to the public to share in the risk. Let us decide if we would like to pay more for a safer airline or save money by going on a cheaper airline. The people will decide with their pocketbook.
Yes, the government is to protect its citizens, but if we can find a way to get the same or better people to investigate the airline industry, I would love to have it be a private company.
Thanks for the reply. Just to clarify for your readers’ benefit, the NTSB is the primary investigative body. The FAA’s role is to prevent similar incidents from happening again. For example, when a US Air 737 seemingly fell out of the sky outside Pittsburgh in 1994, it was the NTSB that concluded that the cause was a malfunction in the rudder, causing it to move to the hard over position that the pilots couldn’t control and that, based on other incidents, the problem could be endemic that that particular type of aircraft. The NTSB had no authority to order an industry-wide inspection. That was the job of the FAA, which it did and, since then, the hard over rudder problem seems to have been resolved.
That said, your stated desire for full disclosure would be sacrificed in a fully privatized system. Other than litigation, there’s just no mechanism, or right, for citizens to demand information from private companies. In addition, the investigations themselves would be compromised if the investigators are dependent upon the industry for compensation. An investigator who concluded that, say, the airline or aircraft manufacturer was negligent (as with the ValuJet crash into the Florida everglades) would never be hired again. A similar result is being observed in arbitration proceedings between banks and consumers. Arbitrators who rule against the banks have been finding themselves on the unwanted list, as banks choose friendlier decisionmakers.
The quality of disinterestedness, that absence of allegiance to industry, forms the very foundation of the public’s trust in aviation safety. That quality would be lost in a privatized system because the guardians of safety would become a part of the system they’re supposed to oversee. As I posited in my original post, the airlines themselves probably don’t want people thinking about safety when they book flights and the idea that some people will take their chances to save some money just isn’t realistic. (It also brings to mind the Titanic tragedy where first class passengers got lifeboats and the poor folks died.) The pocketbook vote would instead become a choice between flying or staying on the ground, which ultimately hurts the industry.
As a final thought, your point about the FAA deserves more discussion but, besides having gone on quite long enough in this reply, I think it’s of a different character that we should discuss separately because it gets into the issue of efficient use of tax dollars. Of course there’s no “pro-inefficiency” camp out there, but you do remind us that every citizen has a duty to take a more active role in civics and to ensure that when the government is entrusted with a particular duty, it does so as trustee, now owner, of our funds.
It’s always a bummer to see the typos only after hitting the “submit” button. The one in the first paragraph is obvious, but in the last one, my mistake changes my meaning rather dramatically. The last line should be “…NOT owner, of our funds.” I didn’t mean to state that the government ever becomes the owner of our tax dollars.
I would be quite frightened to fly if everything was completely privatized. These bodies of oversight are needed for the overall good. I can imagine that each airline would create it’s own investigative arm instead of there being true third parties that are impartial to the investigative process. Would private investigative units (paid for by the airlines once an incident has occured) reveal all their findings to the public, which could open potential legal actions against their employer?
What we must remember is that when we’re talking about government, we’re really talking about ourselves. Although a relatively small number of men and women actually perform the operational duties, they are elected to their offices–or removed from them–through our votes. We expect our representatives to serve our interests, so therefore, we are the government and the government is us. That includes coporations too. A corporation is not a living human being, but is obviously run by humans. So, one would think that if airline personnel tried to undermine a crash investigation, or any public safety issue for that matter, they would effectively be hurting themselves. Ideally, that argument would give us faith enough to trust a company’s actions in just about any situation. The problem is not only is nobody perfect, but sometimes people have motives that are not in alignment with the public good. That is why oversight and regulation is necessary, and I imagine it always will be.
Michael — I’m with you, flying would be a frightening experience. I guess the upshot would be increased profits for the folks who make Xanax.
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