Word: butterfields
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...spot at the FAA is Administrator Alexander P. Butterfield, 48, a former Air Force colonel and F-111 pilot who joined President Richard Nixon's staff as an aide in 1969. In July 1973, Butterfield gave Watergate an entirely new dimension by disclosing the existence of the presidential tapes to members of Senator Sam Ervin's committee and the world. By that time, Butterfield had been head of the FAA for four months, a job he got as a reward for his efficient service in the White House (he was never brushed by Watergate), and was already struggling...
When it was set up in 1958, the FAA was an independent office with the power to act on its own. But in 1967 the agency was incorporated into the newly created Department of Transportation, which is geared more toward the problems of trains and automobiles than of airplanes. Butterfield has had trouble getting approval of a reorganization plan for his sizable operation-55,000 people and a budget of $1.5 billion-and he has even had problems filling key jobs. "I'm still frustrated over the inability to put the people I want where I want them," Butterfield...
...most serious charge against Butterfield is that the FAA has been slow to respond to the recommendations of the National Transportation Safety Board, an independent agency that has the responsibility in the federal hierarchy of promoting safety in all modes of transportation. The NTSB has also taken over the job of investigating aircraft accidents from the Civil Aeronautics Board...
Taped Voice. By law, the NTSB cannot order the FAA to take action, but it can prod hard. On Oct. 8, NTSB Chairman John H. Reed sent Butterfield an official letter about the "unprofessional conduct" demonstrated by a few U.S. flight crews. To document his concern, Reed cited a number of horrifying incidents resulting from sloppy flying in recent years-a DC-9 striking the water and then bouncing safely into the air while nearing Martha's Vineyard; airliners running into trees, cottages and a sea wall while approaching airports; a DC-9 hitting the runway so hard...
...addition, Butterfield last week took steps to require the airlines to adopt in 1975 a device that sounds an audible warning when the leading-edge flaps on a Boeing 747 do not deploy fully-the apparent cause of a Lufthansa accident in Nairobi, Kenya, on Nov. 21 that killed 59 people. Again, Butterfield is open to criticism for not having acted sooner. There had been enough cases of flaps not extending on 747s well before Nairobi to cause British Airways to install such a warning device in 1972, even though none of the failures had at that point caused...