Fear of Flying

FAA acts to calm the jitters

As the nation's airports continued to operate last week without the help of some 12,000 striking air-traffic controllers, the debate heated up between the Reagan Administration and the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization over whether air travel is still safe. Asserting that there had been "a dramatic increase in the number of system errors and near midair collisions" since the Aug. 3 walkout, PATCO released a report detailing more than two dozen in-flight incidents and claimed there have been more than 150. But the Federal Aviation Administration said there were only eleven "near misses," compared with 31 during the same period in 1980.* Assured FAA Administrator J. Lynn Helms: "We have no reason to believe that the system has deteriorated in safety in any way."

To ease the public's fear of flying, the FAA asked the Flight Safety Foundation, a nonprofit watchdog group based in Arlington, Va., to conduct a three-month study of air safety. At the same time, the National Transportation Safety Board, an independent federal agency, announced that it will begin its own investigation of the skyways. The board's review was prompted by both PATCO's charges and congressional worries over safety in the skies. Explained Board Spokesman Barbara Dixon: "Since people were raising questions about safety, we felt obligated to take a look."

The Administration received assistance in its battle last week from the Air Line Pilots Association, which represents 33,000 of the nation's 40,000 commercial pilots. ALPA President John J. O'Donnell had instructed a small group of pilots, including former controllers, at the outset of the strike to collect data on how the system was working. O'Donnell also called upon ALPA members to phone in any hazardous incidents and irregularities. "I can say without equivocation that the air-traffic control system in the country is safe," reported O'Donnell. Bill Reynard, chief of the Aviation Safety Reporting System, a NASA-managed monitoring agency, agrees. Says Reynard: "So far we haven't seen anything out of the ordinary that would cause us to pick up the telephone and call the FAA."

The safety question was inevitably raised, however, by the first midair collision since the start of the walkout. Two small planes approaching the San Jose, Calif, airport smashed into each other two miles short of the runway, killing one person and injuring two others. Both pilots were flying under visual flight rules (VFR) and thus were responsible for keeping a safe distance from other aircraft. A PATCO official claimed that a San Jose controller had not informed the pilots of each other's positions, but a preliminary NTSB report absolved the control tower of any responsibility for the crash.

Though the skies may be as safe as ever, something is causing large numbers of Americans to think twice about flying. On a normal day in August, about 850,000 people travel by air in the U.S. But last week there were only about 700,000 to 750,000 passengers a day. The air lines were operating only about 75% of their flights scheduled before the strike. Yet most major lines were carrying about the same number of passengers per plane as in the same period last year. Eastern Air Lines, for example, was only filling 66% of its seats, the same as in August 1980, and the drop in business forced it to lay off 1,500 middle management personnel. Mutual of Omaha estimated that sales of flight insurance have soared 25% since the strike began. But what appears to be deterring potential passengers is not so much the safety factor as delays and scrambled schedules. "Safety does not seem to be even a minor consideration," says Delta Air Lines Public Relations Manager Bill Berry. "They are more concerned about return-flight cancellations."

Indeed, airline officials are less concerned about the strike's effect on safety than about adjusting their operations to meet the reduced schedule of flights--and cut down on the estimated $30 million a day now being lost by the industry. Administration officials continue to insist that the 12,000 striking air controllers are fired, and the FAA has turned its attention to rebuilding the air-traffic control system, a task that may take two years. To that end, the agency began accepting applications last week for air controller jobs, which pay $20,462 to start. More than 59,000 completed forms were received within the first two days.

* A "near miss" is defined by the Department of Transportation as an incident when two planes come within five miles of each other horizontally and within 1,000 ft. vertically.

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