It’s been almost a year since the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recommended for the second time that gliders be required to use identification transponders during flight so that other pilots in the vicinity can “see” them in the air. Gliders are exempted from the requirement at present. The NTSB first documented this glaring aviation safety hazard more than two decades ago, but the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), in true bureaucratic fashion, has taken no action on an issue that literally involves life and death in commercial aviation. Worse, FAA officials refuse to explain why. And get this: The FAA has asked Congress for $70 billion, the most the agency has ever requested for its annual operating budget.
In the 20 years since the NTSB first raised the issue of gliders flying in commercial airspace without identification transponders, nine people have died in glider/plane collisions, three have been injured, and there have been more than 60 hair-raising close calls, which could have been prevented had FAA officials heeded the advice of the NTSB experts. If the FAA does nothing, it is only a matter of time before a commercial airliner with hundreds of innocent men, women and children aboard has a tragic encounter with a transponder-less glider.
In safety recommendations issued last March, NTSB chairman Mark Rosenker pointed out “the limitations of the see-and-avoid concept for collision avoidance,” noting that the pilots of a corporate jet and a glider had less than a second to react before they collided near Reno in 2006. The glider had a transponder, but it was turned off at the time. Air traffic control and onboard collision avoidance systems can dramatically reduce such mid-air accidents, but these life-saving alert systems only work when both aircraft have the equipment on board – and use it. Hence, the NTSB’s recommendations that the “glider exemption” be removed from FAA regulations and a national glider transponder requirement be adopted.
Glider pilots should be able to enjoy their preferred recreation. In fact, glider training was cited as a key reason Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger was able to land U.S. Airways Flight 1549 successfully in the Hudson River. But glider recreation cannot take precedence over the safety of everybody else who shares the skies. It’s time for Congress to start putting present and former FAA officials under oath – starting with Robert Sturgell who was administrator in 2008 when NTSB most recently urged action – and get some answers on why nothing has been done.
