Aviation Safety: Can NASA Do More to Protect the Public?

Opening Statement By Chairman Bart Gordon

Good afternoon. I’d like to welcome all of our witnesses to today’s hearing. You have made yourselves available to testify on relatively short notice, and I appreciate your willingness to assist the Committee in carrying out our oversight on this important issue.

It was important that we meet as soon as possible to get to the bottom of what has been going on, and what NASA intends to do from this point forward. America’s air transportation system is critical both to our nation’s economic vitality and to our quality of life.

However, it’s no secret that the system faces increasing stresses as air travel demand continues to grow—demand that is expected to increase by a factor of two to three by 2025. And those stresses make it even more important that all necessary steps are taken to maintain air safety. It’s the right thing to do, and the American public expects it.

Our citizens want to be sure that the government and the aviation industry are doing all that can be done to keep the air transportation system safe. That’s why both the public and Members of Congress alike had such a strong reaction to reports that NASA has been withholding an aviation safety survey data base compiled with taxpayer dollars. NASA’s explanation for its refusal to release the data was both troubling and unconvincing.

Specifically, NASA was saying the data can’t be released because it “could materially affect the public confidence in, and the commercial welfare of the air carriers…”

Well, as I’ve said before, NASA needs to focus on maintaining and increasing the safety of the flying public, not on protecting the commercial air carriers. Dr. Griffin has indicated that he agrees, and he will testify today that NASA will publicly release the NAOMS data.

While we need to clarify just exactly what will be released and when—and I hope it will be soon—I am pleased that he is taking that action. If scheduling this hearing helped bring about this change of direction at NASA, I think that it has been a constructive exercise of our oversight responsibilities.

However, the issues we have to consider today go beyond simply the release of the data NASA is withholding. We also have a question of priorities. As former NTSB Chairman Jim Hall will testify today: “A true safety culture requires transparency and constant vigilance.”

Numerous individuals familiar with the NAOMS project have told us that it was envisioned as a long-term, continuing data collection and analysis effort to identify aviation accident precursors and safety trends. And several of our witnesses today will testify that it has the potential to provide information and insights unobtainable from existing data sources.

Thus, by most accounts, NAOMS appeared to be a promising avenue for ensuring that our nation’s air transportation system would retain its impressive safety record in the coming years. Yet whether it was due to shifting priorities, budgetary constraints, cultural differences between agencies, or something else—NAOMS has largely been cast adrift by NASA and the FAA.

I hope that one outcome of today’s hearing will be a reconsideration of the NAOMS project by NASA and the FAA. However, I think we in Congress also need to take a close look at NASA’s overall aviation safety program to make sure that it is still addressing the most relevant safety questions facing the nation’s air transportation system.

That is going to be one of the focuses of this Committee’s oversight in the coming months.  Maintaining and improving aviation safety is an important task for the federal government to accomplish—working in partnership with the aviation industry. The stakes are high, and we need to get it right. We have a lot to cover today, so I again want to welcome our witnesses to today’s hearing, and I now yield to my good friend and colleague, Ranking Member Ralph Hall.

Opening Statement By Chairman Mark Udall (Space and Aeronautics)

Good afternoon. I am disappointed that we have had to convene today’s hearing. But NASA’s stated rationale for refusing to release publicly information from the taxpayer-funded National Aviation Operations Monitoring Service (NAOMS) aviation safety survey is unsupportable and required congressional scrutiny. The safety of the public has to be our first priority, especially with more and more Americans flying every year.

Specifically, in its response to the Associated Press’s request for release of the NAOMS aviation safety survey data, NASA stated that: “Release of the requested data, which are sensitive and safety-related could materially affect the public confidence in, and the commercial welfare of, the air carriers and general aviation companies whose pilots participated in the survey.”

NASA’s response in effect seems to be saying that it sees its job as putting the commercial interests of the aviation industry above the public’s right to aviation safety information.

That response is unacceptable. It’s certainly not in accordance with the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, which created NASA and established objectives for the agency—one of which is “the improvement of the usefulness, performance, speed, safety, and efficiency of aeronautical and space vehicles”, while directing NASA to operate in a manner that will “provide for the widest practicable and appropriate dissemination of information concerning its activities and the results thereof.”

The NASA Administrator has since distanced himself from the language in NASA’s response to the FOIA request, saying that he regrets “the impression that NASA was in any way trying to put commercial interests ahead of public safety. That was not and will never be the case.”

I’d like to hear the Administrator reiterate that stance at today’s hearing. And although I am glad that he has now agreed to release at least some of the NAOMS data publicly so that it can be used to help maintain and hopefully improve the safety of the nation’s airways, I feel strongly that all the NAOMS data should be made publicly available as soon as possible.

I intend to be vigilant to ensure that this release actually occurs in a timely manner.

Former National Traffic Safety Board Chairman Jim Hall, who is one of our witnesses today, got it right in his prepared testimony when he wrote that “It is difficult to overemphasize the importance of transparency and accountability in aviation. It is the single greatest reason why you are so safe when you get on an airplane today.” I wholeheartedly agree. We need to work hard to expand that transparency and accountability—not restrict it. And that is why all the information from the study must be released – and soon.

Yet, the struggle over the fate of the NAOMS data is not the only issue that needs attention at today’s hearing. We also need to decide where we should go from here. We will hear from a number of witnesses here today about the value of a comprehensive, ongoing survey and analysis approach to aviation safety trend analysis and accident precursor identification—the approach exemplified by the NAOMS project.

As Chairman of the Space and Aeronautics subcommittee, I have oversight responsibility for both NASA’s aeronautics and aviation R&D programs and FAA’s aviation R&D programs.

I intend to make sure that the government is taking all necessary steps to have the aviation safety data sources and analysis tools that will be needed to maintain air safety in the coming years.

Based on testimony we will hear today, there appears to be a great deal of merit to the NAOMS approach, and we need to assess whether NASA and FAA should reinstitute the project. Given its potential value and the modest amounts of funding required to make effective use of the NAOMS methodology relative to the more than $30 billion spent on NASA and FAA annually, I think the burden of proof should be on those who want to walk away from the investment made to date in the NAOMS project.

I am aware that a number of FAA officials have indicated that the FAA is not interested in NAOMS and would rather develop a new aviation safety information system combining data from multiple existing safety and performance data bases. Making as effective use as possible of existing data bases is a worthy objective, and one that quite frankly FAA should have been doing all along. However, FAA’s own documentation states that it doesn’t envision completing more than “the Phase 1 pre-implementation activities, including concept definition” for the proposed new combined Aviation Safety Information Analysis and Sharing (ASIAS) system until 2013 at the earliest.

That’s an unacceptably long time to wait, when it appears that NASA and FAA could be generating useful safety trend and accident precursor information – which will help keep the flying public safe – from a restarted NAOMS initiative almost immediately.

It also doesn’t address the question of whether NAOMS could provide additional valuable insights into the safety status and trends for the nation’s air transportation system beyond those available from existing data bases.

These issues go beyond what we are likely to have time to consider today, so I intend to have the Space and Aeronautics subcommittee pursue them in the coming months.

Mr. Chairman, we can take pride in the overall safety record of America’s air transportation system. However, we dare not rest on our laurels. We need to be vigilant to ensure that all is being done that should be done to maintain and improve that safety record – and the information gained from the taxpayer-funded NAOMS study is very important to our work. This hearing is an important step in meeting our safety oversight responsibilities, and I am glad we are holding it.

Opening Statement By Chairman Brad Miller (Investigations and Oversight)

The purpose of today’s hearing is to look at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) management of the National Aviation Operations Monitoring Service (NAOMS), and to examine how, in the absence of a system such as NAOMS, NASA plans on monitoring air safety in the future.

Every year more planes are in the air, and each year brings new challenges to aviation safety. The purpose of NAOMS was to identify problems with both increasing demand and the introduction of new technologies. Instead of reacting to aviation disasters NAOMS would have been able to identify emerging safety problems. The program appears to be a cost-effective and scientifically valid way of looking at airline safety. More important, I would like to know what NASA is going to do to ensure American’s safety in the absence of NAOMS.

I am glad that NASA and Administrator Griffin have voiced a willingness to release the data gathered under the NAOMS project. Analysis of this data could be a key tool in understanding what is happening at US airports. I understand that there is some concern over the release of proprietary commercial data and the anonymity of survey participants. It is my strong hope that NASA will take realistic precautions to ensure anonymity, but not let that become an excuse not to release the data in a timely manner.

Witnesses

Panel 1

1 - Dr. Michael Griffin
Administrator National Aeronautics and Space Administration National Aeronautics and Space Administration
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2 - Mr. Jim Hall
Former Chairman, National Transportation Safety Board Managing Partner, Hall and Associates LLC Managing Partner, Hall and Associates LLC
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Panel 2

1 - Mr. Robert S. Dodd
Safety Consultant and President Dodd & Associates LLC Dodd & Associates LLC
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2 - Dr. Jon A. Krosnick
Frederic O. Glover Professor in Humanities and Social Sciences Stanford University Stanford University
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3 - Captain Terry McVenes
Executive Air Safety Chairman Air Line Pilots Association Air Line Pilots Association
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