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.
