The Former Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Transportation Tells You Everything You Need to Know to Travel Safer by Air MARY SCHIAVO with SABRA CHARTRAND All of the information in this book has been compiled from the most reliable sources, and every effort has been made to eliminate mistakes and questionable data. Nevertheless the possibility of error always exists. Neither the authors nor the publisher will be held responsible for any errors or omissions contained herein. AVON BOOKS A division of The Hearst Corporation 1350 Avenue of the Americas New York, New York 10019 Copyright © 1997, 1998 by Mary Schiavo Cover photo courtesy of The Ohio State University Visit our website at http://www.AvonBooks.com ISBN: 0-380-79330-X All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the U.S.Copyright Law. For information address Avon Books. First Avon Books Paperback Printing: April 1998 First Avon Books Hardcover Printing: May 1997 AVON TRADEMARK REQ. U.S. PAT. OFF. ANI) IN OTHER COUNTRIES, MARCA REGISTRADA, HECHO EN U.S.A. For my children, Larissa Fackler Schiavo and Alexander Fackler Schiavo, parents, and sisters and all loved ones you have ever watched board a plane. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Sometimes even though you know you must do something, the best of intentions never come to fruition without the help and encouragement of others. I had the assistance of more people than I can mention here, some of whom must remain anonymous to keep their jobs. My thanks to all who helped me. I especially wish to thank Sabra Chartrand, New York Times reporter, for her assistance in writing this book, Patricia Lande Grader and the other folks at Avon Books who worked to make this book a reality, and Suzanne Gluck, at International Creative Management, my excellent agent. Of course this book would not have been possible without my six years of experience as Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Transportation. I wish to thank the staff of the Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Transportation, 1990-1996. They served the American people with dedication and courage. Thanks to those U.S. senators and representatives, and their staffs, who supported my work as Inspector General, and to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which helped my office in many investigations. Thanks to the employees within the FAA who tried to improve the safety of aviation, sometimes at the peril of losing their jobs, both while I was Inspector General, and thereafter. I am grateful to Ohio State University, which taught me to fly, taught me the meaning of public service and gave me the opportunity to pass on the lessons to others as the Enarson Professor of Public Policy; as well as to my first flight instructor, James L. Nielsen, now an airline captain, who said, “You fly the plane, don’t let the plane fly you,” a lesson which extended to most things in life. Thanks also to my family and friends who assisted me in ways too numerous to list, especially my parents, Harland and Nina Fackler, and my children, Larissa and Alexander. Finally, thank you to the hardworking, government trusting American people. God bless us all. I NTRODUCTION The ValuJet Tragedy When the call came that would trigger alarm bells over ValuJet, I wasn’t thinking about airlines at all. In early February 1996, my desk, always buried under a mountain of government paperwork, was stacked with folders holding evaluations of security at the biggest airports around the country. As Inspector General of the Department of Transportation, I had ordered tests to see how protected airports really were against terrorists or saboteurs. Now the dismal results lay before me. Teams of normally mild-mannered auditors from my office and the Federal Aviation Administration had posed as bomb-carrying and gun-toting passengers and, to my dismay, had wandered unchallenged through airports, in cargo areas and even onto airplanes all over the country. I wasn’t completely surprised; we had run the same investigation in 1993 and gotten worse results. I was discouraged to find that, three years later, the airlines and airport managers had barely improved their slapdash security. When my phone rang, I was engrossed in writing budget testimony that included an account of how easy it was to slip past security at every major airport. I reached absentmindedly for the phone and immediately heard the voice of an aviation formalist who called frequently to quiz me about airlines and the FAA. This time she didn’t start with a question. “ValuJet just had another one.” It was Elizabeth Marchak, a reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. She didn’t need to explain. “Is the FAA going to do anything about it?” Sighing, I felt a familiar, frustrating disappointment flood through me. ValuJet, a small discount airline that had grown extraordinarily in popularity and size in just a couple of years, was like an unruly teenager with indulgent parents. Lots of people wanted to see it brought into line, but most of them had given up on looking to the parents for discipline. I felt like the principal of the school to which the kid went -- not again, I thought, not another hassle with this troublemaker. Marchak’s voice echoed my weariness. Neither of us was the least shocked to hear about another ValuJet accident. I reached for a note pad. What happened this time? Landing gear collapsed on a plane coming down into Nashville; the same plane’s landing gear had collapsed in December. When the plane hit the ground this time, the right main landing gear collapsed, the belly slammed onto the concrete, the crew lost control, the aircraft skidded off the end of the runway. Was the FAA going to do anything about it? Marchak repeated. “I don’t know,” I answered. “But I am.” Even after five years as Inspector General at the Department of Transportation, I was still unnerved by the news of a plane accident. Dismayed, I realized I’d come to believe that a certain number of crashes were inevitable. As I put down the phone, I wondered -- did that also mean I believed it was only a matter of time before a planeload of people was killed? With a jolt, I forgot about the airport security report. ValuJet had had a string of accidents in the past year, including a fire that had left passengers shaken, terrified or injured, but still alive. This newest one in Nashville hadn’t killed anyone either, but it filled me with dread nevertheless. Picking up the phone again, I called three of my top staff. One -- my deputy, Mario A. Lauro, Jr. -- had been raising red flags about ValuJet for months. Now it seemed clear that the accidents were going to continue, that ValuJet could not fix whatever was wrong. Common sense said ValuJet was headed for a disaster worse than the accidents already plaguing it. Experience from five years of working inside the Federal Aviation Administration told me that the FAA was probably doing nothing to stop it. Surely the FAA, the only branch of government with authority over the aviation industry, knew everything my office did about ValuJet’s problems. In fact, they had to know more -- after all, their inspectors had access to ValuJet’s fleets, hangars, training records, log books and management offices. So what was the FAA doing about it? As Transportation’s Inspector General, I had a duty to keep an eye on how the FAA and the rest of the Department of Transportation did these jobs. I had no authority over the airlines. I could evaluate safety practices and make recommendations, but my office couldn’t set or enforce new regulations for the aviation industry. Only the FAA and the Secretary of Transportation, with powers to check and balance enshrined in federal statutes, had that authority. I was the watchdog of the FAA. The FAA in turn stood guard over the airlines. But that role could be interpreted two ways -- as policing the airlines to ensure safety at all costs, or as protecting the airlines from any opposition or criticism. After five years, I had come to realize that the FAA believed the statutes ordered it to champion the aviation industry. The FAA’s duty, the Federal Aviation Act said plainly, was to promote commercial aviation. Safety was important, too. But nowhere did the statutes explain how the FAA was supposed to reconcile this dual, conflicting mandate. Within the FAA, few believed there was even a conflict at all. From its creation in the l950s, the FAA had (until 1997) been led by men experienced in the world of aviation -- former military pilots, aircraft manufacturing executives, airline senior managers. They were steeped in flying and private, business, two cultures that prized and thrived on independence and freedom to act. Government regulation -- even in the pursuit of safety -- was little more than interference. It didn’t take much insight to guess how these officials viewed ValuJet. In its 1996 Strategic Plan, the FAA had said ValuJet was a model others, including the FAA, should emulate. A wildly successful startup, the airline seemed to embody the future of modern aviation. The FAA supported such winning business propositions and was reluctant to enforce restrictions that might hobble growth. What I saw, however, was an apparently troubled airline with ineffective FAA supervision. The combination could be lethal. I had worked with two of my top staff members, Ray DeCarli and Larry Weintrob, for five years.