Word: faa
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...exactly. Flying a U.S. airline is one of the safest ways to travel in the world, and, in general, getting safer. But no thanks to the FAA's doggedness on the issue. Countless studies, journalistic exposes and congressional hearings have long made it clear that the FAA, with its split function of promoting and regulating the airline industry, has not always moved so decisively as it might have on safety matters...
Last week, with a sudden clarity generated by the publicity, confusion and outrage surrounding the May 11 crash of a ValuJet DC-9 in the Florida Everglades, the FAA at last acknowledged that it is time to clean house and retool for the age of deregulation--which began in 1978. ValuJet chief Lewis Jordan signed a consent order grounding the airline, and another budget flyer, Kiwi, was ordered to cut back its fleet because of insufficient pilot training. The FAA administrator in charge of safety, Anthony Broderick, bailed out, while FAA head David Hinson and Secretary of Transportation Federico Pena...
...after it grounded ValuJet, the Federal Aviation Administration acknowledged, with a veiled mea culpa, that it never moved quickly enough to regulate low-cost air carriers. As unflattering details have emerged about its oversight of ValuJet before the airline's DC-9 crash May 11, the FAA on Tuesday tried to calm the public and forestall further criticism by announcing a policy of tighter airline inspections and forcing its top regulatory officer to retire this month. Too little, too late? Probably. TIME aviation correspondent Jerry Hannifin reports that the May 11 crash has set off a series of investigations...
Even if this particular tragedy can be characterized as human error, however, the crash has laid bare ValuJet's uneven safety record. Since its start-up in October 1993, the airline has had more than 284 "service difficulties," according to the FAA, such as a plane rolling off the runway because of worn brakes. In the first five weeks of 1996, the carrier experienced four "incidents," as the FAA terms them: a hard landing and tail strike, a nose wheel that strayed off the runway when the crew could not see taxi lights, an aircraft that skidded...
...Department of Transportation Secretary Federico Pena, who professed satisfaction with ValuJet's zealous attention to regulators' concerns, a stance echoed by some of his colleagues. Not everyone agreed. DOT Inspector General Mary Schiavo, a presidential appointee who acts as a watchdog for all the agency's programs, including the FAA, ruffled feathers by publicly declaring she would not fly ValuJet. Perhaps she was familiar with the FAA report issued just nine days before the crash and first published by the Chicago Tribune last week. According to that document, the low-cost carriers as a group--the analysts removed the large...