Safety last

After spending $8.5-million and 14 months interviewing 24,000 commercial airline pilots about potentially deadly incidents they’ve faced flying America’s skies, NASA has decided the best thing to do with their findings is bury them. The reason given? In the unrepentantly candid words of NASA associate administrator Thomas Luedtke, the findings 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.”

Speaking anonymously, one NASA employee familiar with the national survey said their research found at least double the number of near mid-air and runway collisions than current monitoring systems show, as well as a high incidence of last-minute orders for pilots to alter landing plans. Faced with these dangers to travellers, NASA closed the project and ordered the contractor who conducted the survey to purge its computers of all related data.

On hearing about NASA’s decision, Chairman of the House Science and Technology Investigations and Oversight Sub-Committee Rep. Brad Miller said, “There is a faint odour about it all.” Miller has asked NASA for more information on the survey as well as an explanation on why the findings have been withheld.

by Scott Saxon