FAA accused of lax safety enforcement

A government watchdog agency yesterday accused the Federal Aviation Administration of not being tough enough in protecting the safety of the nation’s airline passengers.

Security lapses were the most common violation of federal airline-safety rules cited in the report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), formerly the General Accounting Office.

The report, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times, calls for better management controls to ensure that the FAA is enforcing safety rules regarding commercial airlines and private pilots.

The GAO said 29 percent of safety violations, or 55,877 cases, involved security issues, although it did not explain what kinds of security lapses occurred or specify how many took place after the September 11 attacks.

Another 21 percent of the violations involved flight operations and 15 percent involved maintenance; the rest fell into a variety of categories. They were spread among nearly 200,000 FAA enforcement actions from 1993 to 2003. Again, the report did not distinguish between incidents before or after the September 11 attacks.

The FAA no longer handles security issues, which were turned over to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) after in the wake of the attacks.

Rep. Peter A. DeFazio, Oregon Democrat, said careless safety enforcement represents a greater hazard now, when major airlines are near bankruptcy.

“At a time when the airlines are struggling financially, ineffective or inconsistent enforcement of aviation-safety regulations could undermine public confidence in the safety of flight,” said Mr. DeFazio, a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure aviation subcommittee.

“In fact, when airline revenue is low, the FAA should increase their scrutiny even more to be sure that the industry is not cutting corners on safety to save a few dollars and meet their bottom line,” he said.

After the terrorist attacks, Congress accused airlines of similar attempts to save money on security by using low-paid passenger screeners. Lawmakers moved supervision of the screeners to the TSA from the airlines.

The GAO report said:

• The FAA imposed $334 million in fines on airlines and pilots from 1993 to 2003, but the agency’s legal staff reduced the fines to $162 million.

• The FAA does not evaluate its own enforcement actions and, therefore, has no way of knowing whether they are effective.

• The FAA’s database for tracking rules violations is incomplete, is difficult to use and varies from office to office.

FAA officials agreed with some of the GAO’s findings, but disputed whether reducing fines showed that they were careless.

Story Continues →