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    • IT’S BUSH’S FAULT

    Filed at 5:19 am under by dcobranchi

    Just another skirmish in the GWOR.*

    What NASA knows about airline safety in America may be hazardous to our health. But we don’t know for sure, because NASA has decided that the airlines’ financial health is more important than disclosing what it learned in a study funded with our money.

    More than a year ago, The Associated Press learned about NASA’s $8.5 million air-safety study, which was based on interviews with about 24,000 commercial and general-aviation pilots over nearly four years. According to NASA officials who were familiar with the study but not authorized to comment publicly on it, some safety problems — like near-collisions and runway interference — are at least twice as common as previous studies had found.

    …For more than 14 months, NASA has rejected AP requests, made under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, to see the survey results. NASA’s associate administrator, Thomas S. Luedtke, told the AP that revealing the study’s findings could damage the public’s confidence in airlines and cut the airlines’ profits.

    Yes, because corporate profits should always be the government’s GOP’s primary concern.

    *GOP War on Reality.

    3 comments »

    3 Responses to “IT’S BUSH’S FAULT”


    Comment by
    Nance Confer
    October 23rd, 2007
    at 7:41 am

    So why did the AP take so long to tell us about this?

    Nance

    Comment by
    Daryl Cobranchi
    October 23rd, 2007
    at 9:32 am

    I think this might be why:

    “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,” Luedtke wrote in a final denial letter to the AP. NASA also cited pilot confidentiality as a reason, although no airlines were identified in the survey, nor were the identities of pilots, all of whom were promised anonymity.

    Evidently, NASA played keep-away with the AP for a long time.

    Comment by
    Toni
    October 23rd, 2007
    at 10:56 am

    Oh, go take your Soma and stop worrying….

    Just kidding. I looked above my head in Raleigh the other day and saw 2 jets *shocking* close together, or at least to my eye. Yikes. There is no telling how much data is being hidden that could actually be used to increase air safety.

    And, just a couple of days ago there was an article in the paper about the huge surge in experienced air traffic controllers retiring early or leaving due to displeasure over new contracts.
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