A brazen attack on air safety is underway — here’s what’s at stake

At the end of July, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) summoned a three -day public audience to investigate the open -air collision of January on Washington, DC which killed 67 people. After the hearing, two conclusions were essential.

First, the disaster should have been prevented by existing security rules. Second, government regulators responsible for air security have hesitated to apply these rules, especially when it means resisting industry requests for more flights and lower costs.

Instead of repairing institutional cowardice of the regulatory state, the Trump administration is evolving even more. The air -security crisis has finally reached a head precisely when bad people are in charge.

There is an old aviation truism: regulations are written in the blood. And there were many. Between 1960 and 1990, more than a thousand people died worldwide in commercial aviation accidents every yearEven if the flight volumes were lower than what they are today. The pilots stole too much. Cabin safety has been ignored. Plane manufacturers did not know the basic sciences of materials. Innocent passengers paid the price.

Since then, new safety standards and a culture of continuous improvement have reduced the fatal accident rate by 90%. The rules of the seat belt prevented people from being born of Alaska Airlines 1282 when a section of the fuselage exploded in the air last year. The well -formed on -board agents evacuated the passengers twice from the planes by actively burning without a single death (despite the fact that in both cases, some passengers stopped to recover their hand luggage). And the pilots have avoided several collisions in the air and on the ground since January 1.

Successful success lacks a show: it depends less on personal heroism than on the monitoring of rules. But it works.

However, when the rules are ignored, a disaster follows. The NTSB investigation into the accident above Reagan National found a litany of problems that no one took the trouble to solve. Essential safety equipment did not work. The pilots were not clear on the appropriate procedure. Air traffic control has missed and exceeded by the volume and complexity of traffic. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) allowed helicopters to go directly below the landing aircraft in national Reagan, even if this traffic regime has led to thousands of close calls each year. The apology was numerous and the solutions little.

“Sixty-seven people are dead,” shouted Jennifer Homendy during the hearings. “Fix it. Do better.”

His words perfectly summarize the state of air security today. There are a lot of criticism, but few problems of problems. And being one would require courage to oppose post-reactive virtues of shareholders’ value and business freedom.

Take the new FAA’s head, Bryan Bedford, the former CEO of Frontier Airlines and Republic Airways (and a TV star that Onetime as his new boss Sean Duffy, and his boss Donald Trump). Despite the public’s confidence in aviation, he has already launched an RFK Jr. style attack on basic security regulations just to make airlines more profitable.

During its confirmation, Bedford reported that it was open to the repeal of two specific rules. The first forces airline pilots to accumulate 1,500 hours of experience before being able to obtain their Air Transport Pilot license (ATP). He was passed following the Colgan Air 3407 accident in 2009, which was allocated to the pilot error due to insufficient training. The second is the compulsory retirement age for 65 years for pilots. This was planned in 2007 to match international security standards.

Under the guise of “asking questions”, he described the “arbitrary” standards and not supported by the data. He also said they had contributed to pilot shortages, an affirmation he has repeated for almost a decade.

He is wrong on merits: several studies by academics and regulators have affirmed that “the protective effect of flight experience” increases over time and that the majority of accidents occur before the pilots reach 1,100 hours of experience. Conversely, the performance of the pilots are starting to deteriorate in a measurable way beyond 63 years, and drivers over 65 are more at risk of “debilitating events” which make an accident 10,000 times more likely.

But he is less concerned with the facts than to disturb the labor market in a way that he could never as a corporate CEO.

Under Bedford, the Republic was known for its “very lower” remuneration structure. In 2016, a year in which the FAA authorized a record number of new airline pilots, Republic had so much difficulty recruiting and retaining the pilots he declared bankruptcy. In a competitive market, Bedford’s strategy did not work.

But as a FAA administrator, Bedford can bend the market to its will. The removal of the hours of required would flood the market from new pilots that would gain entry -level wages. Paradoxically, increasing retirement age would also create an artificially cheap workforce. Because other countries still have compulsory age limits, drivers over 65 could not travel international routes. Instead, they could only accept interior routes with low remuneration on smaller planes. The two movements would effectively create wage reductions at industry level via regulation – a preferred tip from the Trump administration.

Unsurprisingly, the pilots themselves are massively against the two proposals. Less than five percent of the pilots support the increase in the age limit beyond 65 years or completely eliminating it. Chelsey “Sully” Sullenberger, the flight pilot “Miracle on the Hudson”, castigated Bedford for his position on the 1,500 hour rule for his impact on security.

“The appointment of Bryan Bedford for the FAA administrator puts the integrity of our extreme risk air security system,” he wrote in an Instagram post. “Bedford said he would reduce the regulations and let the airlines regulate. It’s crazy. “

Despite these objections, Bedford was confirmed by a 53-43 vote. It was the narrowest margin for any administrator of the FAA in history; Most administrators, including his immediate predecessor Michael Whitaker, were unanimously confirmed.

Airlines have taken its appointment of division as a signal that “minimum” security regulations can now be even more minimized.

In June, American Airlines received approval to lower its endowment levels to on-board agents on some of its new aircraft 787-9. As a rule, airlines based in the United States affect enough on-board agents so that everyone can cover a single emergency exit in the event of evacuation. In this reduced program, only one on -board agent would be responsible for the two emergency outings at the back of the economy class – a section of the plane which can accommodate up to 124 passengers.

Sara Nelson, which represents 55,000 on-board agents at 20 airlines as an international president of the Association des Agents de Bord-CWA, said that the personnel guidelines were set half a century ago and have not been affected since then.

“We have a regulatory agency that has not followed the realities of the cabin,” she said The penis. “The seats are closer, more people on the plane than ever before, more complications in the cabin.”

On -board agents must also perform a wide variety of emergency tasks, from the use of defibrillators to monitor any security threats. As the first aviation stakeholders, they are extended to the capacity as is. The reduction of their levels below the minimum will make almost impossible to do their job.

In the end, Nelson’s concern is not only a single type of plane. It is the previous one he establishes. Historically, as soon as a large airline reduces staff, Wall Street requires that others quickly follow up in order to reduce costs. If the whole industry follows the example of the Americans, it will be the clearest signal for the moment that those in power care more of the larger beneficiary margins than they do on passenger safety.

To be clear, a regulatory decline probably will not make many more planes fall from the sky. But that will create real risks.

These risks could look like Aeroflot 1492 in 2019, where a slower evacuation than expected resulted in 41 deaths. Or they could resemble the disorganized and delayed reaction to the India 171 air accident of the severe aviation regulator of India, which made it possible to spread theories of disinformation and conspiracy. Or they can resemble higher exhaustion rates among pilots, on -board agents and air controllers who must replace individual effort to hollow institutions that no longer support them.

In short, the attack on regulations will reduce the margin of safety everywhere and will erode confidence in plane trips – all to allow the industry to fill its margins.

This desire to abandon security standards in the name of profits is bad for aviation, explains Nelson.

“It is a continuous pressure and a descending spiral. It’s shocking, but not surprising.”