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NASA Criticized for Handling of Airline Data

Posted on: Wednesday, 2 January 2008, 06:00 CST

By Alan Levin

WASHINGTON -- Aviation safety experts and lawmakers lambasted NASA this week for the agency's release of a massive airline safety database in a format that makes it difficult to analyze.

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, under pressure from Congress, had promised to make the National Aviation Operational Monitoring Service data public by the end of the year. He did so Monday afternoon but said the data are not reliable and the agency had no intention of studying it.

The data consist of interviews of more than 30,000 pilots from 2001 through 2004. Last year, NASA initially refused to release the data, saying it could damage public confidence in airlines.

Griffin said he was concerned about the validity of the survey. Other forms of safety data, such as airline programs that encourage pilots to come forward with safety concerns, had supplanted the need for the NASA survey, he said.

Rep. Brad Miller, D-N.C., chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee of the House Science Committee, said that the release did not fulfill Congress' mandate and that Griffin's dismissal of the data contradicted testimony from experts before the committee.

"I think they would want more sets of eyes, more points of view, more data on aviation safety," Miller said.

Peter Goelz, former managing director of the National Transportation Safety Board, said releasing the data on New Year's Eve was designed to limit coverage of the issue. "Releasing it in raw form without any of the guidance to make it understandable to the public smacks of arrogance," he said.

The NASA data were difficult to analyze because efforts to ensure that none of the pilots interviewed was identifiable prompted the agency to delete detailed information about incidents described in the report.

The data contain hundreds of cryptic comments taken from pilot interviews on safety concerns such as fatigue, the potential for collisions with other planes and air traffic procedures.

There is no context for the comments. One record says only, "Air crew falling asleep." In another, a pilot complains about the danger of a midair collision at a specific airport, which was identified as "airport x."

The Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees airlines, will try to merge the NASA data with its dozens of other reporting systems, spokeswoman Laura Brown said. However, the agency has said the way questions were asked in the NASA survey does not match FAA definitions of incidents, making it difficult to compare results.

Source: USA TODAY

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