Word: faa
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...FAA did try to get airports to do a better job at screening. In January 1996 it warned airline and airport managers at major airports across the country that there were serious problems not only with airline screening processes but also with the airports' security procedures. For example, O'Hare was in 16th place among 19 big international airports. The FAA said its people watched 1,500 bags go through checkpoints, and saw only one opened for closer inspection...
...contended that the security report was so important that not only should it be released immediately, it should be delivered directly to the President. But mine was the minority opinion in that office that day. The FAA, with the backing of the Secretary of Transportation, agreed to send a copy of the document to the National Security Adviser but remained convinced it was best to withhold the report from the public indefinitely. dot officials insisted that I hold the report; they were requesting that the document be classified...
...knew I could no longer stay in my job. once again, the FAA was manipulating a potential public relations crisis without a thought for the safety issues involved. The Secretary of Transportation's office was assisting the cover-up by insisting the report should be classified, even though the classifiers had already approved it for release. They didn't really care that the airport-security report wouldn't qualify for classification; it would take weeks to figure that out, and by then the Olympics would be over, the goal accomplished, the crisis past...
...expected change, I knew I had to devise yet another strategy to circumvent the FAA, to find a way to offer my concerns about safety and security directly to the public. I had to resign, even though it meant leaving the airport-security report behind and unprotected. The dot was adrift, blown wherever the winds of a media event or crisis carried it. The Secretary offered no leadership, no knowledge or understanding, no accountability. The administrator of the FAA was a figurehead. Neither of them heeded NTSB recommendations; neither followed through on the many reports detailing safety problems...
...take the letter until July 8. A week later, the House Subcommittee on Aviation asked me to explain why I was leaving my job. Transportation Secretary Pena and administrator Hinson were there too, and they seemed determined to distance themselves from any responsibility for the problems at the FAA that I complained about. The Inspector General had never warned him about ValuJet, Pena told the Senators. He had no knowledge, he insisted, of how deep the crisis ran at the discounter, and he found it very troubling that I had implied that alarm bells should have been ringing all over...