CAN WE EVER TRUST THE FAA?

By ELIZABETH GLEICK

To the average trusting air traveler, things have come to a sorry pass indeed when lawmakers propose altering the language of the Federal Aviation Administration charter to "put safety first." Where in the great blue yonder did it rank before? Last?

Not exactly. Flying a U.S. airline is one of the safest ways to travel in the world, and, in general, getting safer. But no thanks to the FAA's doggedness on the issue. Countless studies, journalistic exposes and congressional hearings have long made it clear that the FAA, with its split function of promoting and regulating the airline industry, has not always moved so decisively as it might have on safety matters.

Last week, with a sudden clarity generated by the publicity, confusion and outrage surrounding the May 11 crash of a ValuJet DC-9 in the Florida Everglades, the FAA at last acknowledged that it is time to clean house and retool for the age of deregulation--which began in 1978. ValuJet chief Lewis Jordan signed a consent order grounding the airline, and another budget flyer, Kiwi, was ordered to cut back its fleet because of insufficient pilot training. The FAA administrator in charge of safety, Anthony Broderick, bailed out, while FAA head David Hinson and Secretary of Transportation Federico Pena vowed to turn their attention to such hot-button issues as the use of subcontractors for aircraft maintenance. They'll leave industry cheerleading to others. Given that this decision came after the death of 110 people, questions linger about the FAA's capacity to untangle red tape and effect radical change.

The crash has shed light on some classic failures in the FAA's handling of low-cost carriers. For starters, after the ValuJet tragedy, Hinson and Pena trumpeted the airline's safety record--statements that began to seem increasingly surreal as inspection reports started popping up, showing ValuJet had committed enough infractions to merit grounding months ago. A number of FAA inspectors told TIME they sent regional offices and headquarters critical reports that were ignored. There is talk of a criminal investigation. And though the agency was concerned enough about ValuJet earlier this year to run a special review, it was not till after the crash--and a stepped-up, 30-day inspection revealing that planes repeatedly flew with known defects and the airline employed unqualified mechanics--that ValuJet planes were towed back to their hangars.

The FAA has long had a history of such "benign tolerance." Administrators, many of whom have close ties to the airline industry, have taken great pleasure in touting the billions of dollars consumers save by flying upstart airlines like ValuJet. At the same time, the agency has been reluctant to force companies to use new technology, insisting on proof that the benefits outweigh the costs to the airlines. In the late '80s, for instance, the agency dragged its feet on requiring the installation of the ground-proximity warning system in commuter airlines, even though this simple device could have prevented a number of crashes. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), a separate agency that investigates crashes, has suggested that the FAA check flight-data recorders regularly--not just after a crash--to assess planes and pilots. The recommendation has gone nowhere.

In particular, the FAA has been especially slow to monitor an increasingly common practice: airlines' using outside contractors to perform routine maintenance and repairs. Although the ValuJet crash is now believed to have been caused by mislabeled oxygen generators rather than an inspection or a mechanical failure, those generators had been prepared for shipping by one such subcontractor, SabreTech Inc., a Phoenix, Arizona, company that handled a number of tasks for the airline.

ValuJet president Jordan vehemently defends this practice of outsourcing, saying it "has been done by the finest airlines. It is a sound concept; it is a good concept." This is true. But the drive to slash costs can sometimes lead to cut-rate care. The FAA has found that ValuJet contracted out all its maintenance to "geographically diverse low bidders" and that there were "multiple shortcomings" in the supervision of the firms. According to experts, the relationship between an airline and its maintenance teams must be symbiotic. "You need well-trained people, people whose morale is high," explains Louis Smith, an Atlanta-based airline consultant. "When a third party comes between you and these employees, you don't know if this is the case."

Outsourcing is here to stay, however, and last week the FAA conceded that it had been unprepared to handle the rise in "virtual airlines"--those assembled by contracting out various service components, from maintenance to reservations.

Why would a seemingly vital federal agency be so unprepared? For one thing, the FAA is financially strapped, and has lost 5,000 employees since 1993. It has a constant shortage of inspectors, and rather than inspecting, they must devote increasing amounts of time to clerical tasks. Moreover, the agency continues to assign inspectors according to the size of an airline rather than the number of subcontractors it uses. The agency says it will change the way it monitors outsourcing, requiring stricter supervision and compliance in the future. "The regulatory climate is going to be quite changed," says John Strong, co-author of a book called Why Airplanes Crash: Aviation Safety in a Changing World. "The real question is, What kind of reform is going to take place?"

The answer may have a lot to do with staffing changes within the agency. While Hinson receives plaudits for trying to buck the bureaucracy--for instance, by pushing last year to regulate commuter airlines in the same way as larger commercial airlines--reviews are mixed about Pena, who has been criticized for putting politics over safety, and about Broderick. In his nearly 20 years at the FAA, Broderick was a tough, respected administrator, and his supporters believe he is being sacrificed on the altar of public relations. But others claim that he could be unyielding and slow to acknowledge problems. For instance, it took two fatal crashes before he had the agency investigate wing-deicing difficulties on turboprop commuter ATR-42 planes--a trouble spot the NTSB flagged after the first crash.

Many aviation experts see this as a golden moment of opportunity for the FAA--and by extension, the flying public. There is talk of privatizing the agency, while some experts say they hope the agency exploits revolutionary technologies to improve flight safety, such as the enhanced ground-positioning warning system, which might have averted the December crash of an American Airlines jet in Cali, Colombia. Still, even if the FAA takes a more activist role rather than scrambling for cover after the next plane tumbles out of the sky, planes will fall. "We are dealing with machines and people, and they are not flawless," says air-safety expert Rudolf Kapustin. "Sadly, we're going to have accidents. But we can have fewer accidents."

--Reported by Adam Cohen/Atlanta and Jerry Hannifin/Washington

With reporting by ADAM COHEN/ATLANTA AND JERRY HANNIFIN/ WASHINGTON