Show By GET ELWOOD R QUESADA Former Administrator Federal Aviation Agency With no punches pulled a controversial expert tells what aviation must do to prevent future tragedies and make our skies safer We must improve air or risk disaster because it is a fact that with today’s aircraft speeds the human eye cannot see far enough nor the human brain think fast enough to protect the lives of passengers At the Federal Aviation Agency from which D recently resigned we have worked tirelessly to develop and install modern methods and instruments Why then you ask do we continue to have tragic accidents such as the mid-ai- r collision of two giant airliners over New York City last December? What forces and what derelictions hold back safety? Our problems involve men machines and money but before we discuss them in detail let’s take a quick look at the job to be done and how it has grown Some years ago as a junior member of a military fjoard I helped choose the site of the Air Force’s Bolling Field across the Potomac River from the Washington DC National Airport Today Bolling is inadequate Before I resigned I recommended that it be closed This change has occurred in my own lifetime In 1938 we had about 29000 planes aloft Today there are more than 109000 including 170 civilian jets 70000 other ImvahTand business planes and 30000 military aircraft During 1959 control towers operated by the FAA handled more than 27 million landings and take-off- s The Federal government inspects and certifies every new aircraft to make sure it is as safe as preliminary examination can make it On the turbo-pro- p Electra plane alone government personnel exof engineering effort exhausting every pended 19000 expected contingency Still it was not enough The FAA --works with aircraft pilots flight engineers navigators mechanics dispatchers Instructors airports repair stations airline operators crop dusters manufacturers and almost everyone else connected with aviation On any given day the air is crowded with planes sometimes as many as 8000 at once mostly clustered around cities and along the Federal airways Each has a right to his share of the air space WE CAN MUST man-hou- rs -- -- The Problems of the Air-Safe- ty -- Program The FAA provides service day and night seven days a week 365 tensions of days a year FAA personnel must endure the daily operations plus the awesome concern of what could happen Tomorrow always brings more speed Not many years ago passenger planes flew 180 miles per hour Today jets travel 600 mph By the end of this decade 1 am convinced that passenger planes will fly at three times the speed of sound or nearly 2000 mph With a population of planes plus a multiplication of speeds as a daily diet how can the FAA best discharge its duties? First there is the need for money which until five years ago had been virtually ignored collision is caused Most experts will agree with me that no mid-ai- r by a single factor or fault It happens through a combination of rea hour-by-ho- ur fast-increasi- ng sons including the fact that for a decade appropriations were not available for the development and purchase of equipment that would have prevented disaster For many years we slept Now we are reaping the harvest of that neglect Despite increasingly generous appropriations over the last five years we cannot solve our problems overnight Scientific solutions must have time for conception and maturing through trial and error Progress in science is evolution not an explosion But there is another reason for a lagging program It concerns men and human nature Very early in the life of FAA we came to feel' that our crowded skies made it imperative for a pilot to remain in his cockpit during flight You may recall that newspapers reported several near misses two years ago In one encounter an Air Force pilot told of a DC7 which approached him and passed without once changing course or taking evasive action We investigated and found out why The pilot of the DC7 had been back in the passenger cabin socializing When yve fined him for violation of regulations we were called a “childish Gestapo” Stronger words were on the way air-safe- ty ’ Slow Old Can a Good Pilot Be? We became concerned about the physical efficiency of pilots assigned to 600 jets At what age should a pilot be grounded? Three leading European airlines had designated 55 and 60 years We consulted medical authorities familiar with the problem because 40 US airline pilots already were over 60 By 1967 this group would number 250 Moreover they had seniority and first choice of the fast newjetsHalf:the pilots on one line’s jet rosteralready were over 60 Eventually we adopted a rule that the age limit for US airline pilots be 60 years And again a thunderous protest Opposition to another FAA policy erupted violently in an adjacent area Between 1950 and 1959 7000 Americans were killed in the field of general aviation Of these 3700 were private pilots 3212 were passengers 164 were crewmen or students 54 were crop dusters 101 were persons killed on the ground Why so many deaths in the aviation field we wondered One soft spot in our safety standards was the concept of medical examination that had been tolerated since 1945 After normal procedures and hearings the FAA ordered a return to the earlier policy of designating qualified examiners I do not believe the order was unreasonable but again there was an outburst of protest: Harassment by certain groups in my opinion has surely served to undermine the confidence of American citizens in the policies of their government’s aviation agency Constructive criticism was always welcomed during my tenure of office Open discussion is essential to free government Private rights must be protected from official abuse but at what point should a selfish interest give way to public interest? (Continued) miles-per-ho- ur horse-and-bug- rule-maki- gy ng Family Weekly March 19 1961 11 |