Federal Aviation Administration officials’ insistence that a photo-op of Air Force One flying over the Statue of Liberty – which spooked half of Manhattan – was classified information that should not be made public beforehand is the latest example of the agency’s disturbing lack of common sense.
During the last two decades, nine people died and three were injured in preventable mid-air collisions between motorized aircraft and gliders. There have been dozens of near-misses that could have taken many more lives.
The National Transportation Safety Board recommended twice – in 1987 and again in 2008 – that the FAA remove its “glider exemption” from a requirement that all aircraft in shared airspace above 10,000 feet carry transponders. But the FAA has inexplicably been dragging its feet ever since.
In response to a Freedom of Information Act request by The Examiner, the FAA recently released dozens of crash reports and correspondence regarding the glider exemption. One was a Jan. 7, 2009 letter to Dianne Black-Nixon, chairman of the Soaring Society of America, from acting NTSB chairman Mark Rosenker.
Rosenker noted that “from 1988 to August 2007, 60 near mid-air collisions involving air carrier/corporate jet traffic and gliders were reported.” In the absence of FAA regulations, Rosenker urged members of the glider organization to “continue to promote the installation and use of transponders among its members…to help mitigate the occurrence of future accidents.”
Rosenker’ assessment of the danger was echoed by a glider pilot with nine years of experience flying both gliders and private aircraft.
The letter writer, whose name was redacted by the FAA, wrote following a 2006 crash over Smith, Nevada involving a glider and a Hawker corporate jet in which both pilots reported having less than a second to take evasive action. It wasn’t enough.
The Hawker, with one engine disabled, managed to land at Reno-Tahoe International Airport and the glider pilot, who had turned off his transponder to conserve battery power, parachuted to safety. But they were lucky.
Identifying himself as a retired Silicon Valley executive who lives and often “soars” near the crash location, the pilot agreed that “it would be simply crazy to NOT fix this serious safety exposure.” He also pointed out that technological advances in glider design make the 1988 exemption obsolete. “All the original reasons to exempt gliders from the rule of mandatory transponders above 10,000 [feet] are now virtually irrelevant.” They include:
· Weight: A five-pound battery and a two-pound transponder are “insignificant” on modern gliders weighing up to 2,000 lbs.
· Space – Modern battery-powered transponders are more compact and “fit into virtually all modern gliders.”
· Power consumption – Solar chargers and newer batteries that can “very easily handle the load for flights in excess of five hours” eliminate one of the main objections to mandatory transponders for gliders.
· Cost – Modern gliders cost between $50,000 and $300,000, so adding a $3,000 transponder is not a primary barrier to glider ownership.
“See and be seen just doesn’t work,” the anonymous Silicon Valley executive/pilot added, noting that “there is no known practical mechanism to reasonably assure avoidance of mid-airs in high-traffic and high-speed air space without transponders. It is a statistical certainty that a mid-air will occur one day that brings down an aircraft, resulting in fatalities that could reach into the hundreds.”
In other words, it’s not if such a disaster will occur, but when.
The Examiner is appealing FAA’s redaction of the letter writer’s name.
Barbara F. Hollingsworth is the Examiner’s local opinion editor.
