Airline industry puts profits before safety

The crash of a turboprop commuter plane near Buffalo, N.Y., on Feb. 12 killed all 49 people on board and one on the ground. The plane, operated by Pinnacle Airlines for Continental Airlines, went down while approaching the Buffalo airport in icy conditions. All sources immediately suggested that icing played a role in the crash.

The Buffalo newspaper reported that two airlines, American Eagle and Comair, had stopped flying turboprop planes in icy conditions, partly out of safety concerns, after deadly crashes similar to the one near Buffalo. For most airlines, however, turboprops mean fuel efficiency savings for short flights, and they continue using them.

Information about this type of aircraft’s history of mechanical problems began to appear in the news media, and there were suggestions that a deadly combination of problems might have doomed the plane.

The National Transportation Safety Board has been calling for the Federal Aviation Administration to use current research to evaluate the effects of freezing rain on all the systems of existing turboprop planes. The NTSB has been pressing for changes in the certification of these planes for more than 12 years.

For much of that time, the Buffalo News reports, the FAA did not address those urgent issues, but simply left the recommendations in the hands of its advisory committee composed mainly of airline industry representatives.

Even when the airline companies began producing experts who speculated that “pilot error” might have been a factor in the recent crash, their claims were buried under revelations that the NTSB had issued recommendations for pilot procedures in icing conditions that were sharply different from current FAA regulations.

While the NTSB investigation will likely take at least a year to determine whether icing from freezing rain had anything to do with this crash, aviation experts say the safety board has been pushing for years, with no results, for new rules for flying in such conditions.

The former head of the NTSB, Jim Hall, stated in a Feb. 17 op-ed article in the Buffalo News: “More tragic, this crash was foreseeable and likely preventable, if not for the preference of profit over safety in some of the aviation industry and for the lax oversight of the [FAA] in its failure to adequately address known safety risks related to icing.

“[A]n airworthiness directive published by the FAA in 1996 notes that the earlier, 40-seat model of [this] aircraft had an unsafe condition which could result in loss of control of the aircraft when flaps were extended during icing conditions—as they were in [this] crash—and further that the autopilot should not be engaged in ‘severe icing conditions,’ a vaguely defined term.

“But because the FAA basically ignored the NTSB’s recommendation to adequately test aircraft in these conditions before declaring them airworthy, the certification of this new version of the DHC-8 went along without a hitch. The most substantial change to the new model was not related to safety: the aircraft was stretched to allow 78 passengers to be carried by the aircraft. In short, even in light of the [American Eagle and Comair] accidents, safety was compromised so that these aircraft would be allowed to fly more people at cheaper cost.

“In this instance, the FAA and the airline industry clearly placed a higher value on profit than on their passengers’ safety.”

According to the FAA, the first thing it does when considering the safety recommendations of the NTSB is to do an economic evaluation of the proposed changes. Often that’s also the only task undertaken, as modifications that would prove too expensive for the industry are shelved for lengthy study.

“Cozy” is the word used to describe the FAA’s relationship with the airline industry, as stated in testimony by FAA inspectors before a House committee early in 2008. Several inspectors admitted that violations they reported were often suppressed.

The FAA, like other regulatory agencies, demonstrates that its first duty is to protect the profits of the industry it’s supposed to regulate.