The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Air Safety

[Tease]

ROBERT MacNEIL [voice-over]: This scene occurred safely almost 14,000 times a day in this country last year. But this winter, scenes like these: the World Airways accident at Boston, the United Airlines incident at Philadelphia, and the Air Florida disaster in Washington have given rise to new concerns about bad-weather safety at the nation's airports.

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MacNEIL: Good evening. All this week there have been hearings in Washington into the Air Florida crash there on January 13th in which 78 people died. Taking off on a snowy afternoon, the airliner hit a busy commuter bridge and plunged into the Potomac River. Until that crash, the nation's major airlines had gone a record 26 months without a fatal accident. But the Air Florida disaster is only one of a series of fatal accidents or close calls at airports this winter. Most of the mishaps occurred in snowstorms and while the planes were taking off or landing on snow-covered runways. The incidents have raised a number of questions in the aviation community. For instance, are bad-weather safety procedures adequate? Are all flight crews trained well enough to handle bad-weather problems? How bad do conditions have to be to get a flight grounded, and who should make that decision? And those are some of the questions we ask tonight. Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Robin, for the National Transportation Safety Board it's like putting together a picture puzzle, the pieces being the various scraps of information and perspective given at the week-long hearings by 46 different witnesses including, among others, the survivors of the crash itself plus air traffic controllers, ground-crew members and pilots who were working at National Airport on that fateful afternoon. When put together these pieces hopefully will form a final answer to why Air Florida Flight 90 crashed -- an answer not expected officially from the Safety Board for several more months. Meanwhile, say air safety experts, beware of jumping to quick conclusions. One such expert who says that is Charles Miller, formerly a staff member of the National Transportation Safety Board, who now runs his own private air safety consulting firm. Mr. Miller has attended this week's hearings on Flight 90 and has closely monitored the overall investigation thus far. Mr. Miller, it may be too early to draw conclusions, but there are some good signs on what happened, are there not, sir, thus far, based on what's been said at the hearing?

CHARLES MILLER: Yes, Jim. I think if you look at the overall outline of what they plan to cover, it's encouraging. It looks like the Board is going to be getting into some very interesting areas.

LEHRER: What are the major areas that have come up thus far where you think the cause may be found?

Mr. MILLER: Well, there are seven of them, really. One is the "who did what to whom" in the sense of handling the airplane on the ground, with principal emphasis, of course, on de-icing. Then you get into the air traffic control aspect of, was it cleared in too close proximity to an approaching airplane, and that sort of thing. They have covered those two items to a pretty fair degree already with discussions with eyewitnesses and --

LEHRER: Well, the de-icing -- let's stop there on the de-icing. The evidence thus far, based on what I have read, indicates that it was not -- the plane was not properly de-iced. Do you agree with that?

Mr. MILLER: Not exactly, and if you'll bear with me with a very short story. When I was a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps, they told me to take up this Corsair and I was going to fly above all the clouds, you know. And then I got to 35,000 feet sucking on oxygen, and I wondered what all that white stuff was above me. Now, since that time, we've gone through learning experiences on weight turbulence; we've gone through it on wind shear in the JFK accident up in New York; we've gone through a water-ingestion problem with the New Hope, Georgia, accident, and now, I think, we're going through a learning experience about icing in terms of the Air Florida Flight 90 accident. As recently as this afternoon the testimony, I think, in my judgment and that of, probably, others, is that it's a revelation how little in many ways we know about the icing phenomenon.

LEHRER: I see. All right, you've covered three of them. What are your other factors?

Mr. MILLER: Well, you've got the airplane itself in terms of the anti-ice system for the engine, and there's been a lot of mileage given in the media about the freezing up of the probes and giving improper engine indication.

LEHRER: Meaning that the engine wasn't thrusting strong enough to take off?

Mr. MILLER: As much as the pilots thought it was.

LEHRER: Right. Okay.

Mr. MILLER: You also have a question raised some years ago by a number of incidents with a Boeing 737 in which it tended to pitch up or roll.

LEHRER: Which is what this plane was?

Mr. MILLER: Yes, sir. It tended to pitch up and roll under atmospheric conditions like this, and I'm not sure everybody totally understands that. We're going to hear more about that later in the week. You've got the overall practices and procedures of a deregulated airline, in a sense -- Air Florida coming into the picture. They don't fly -- they never started out, certainly, in the northeast, and that's going to come under scrutiny. The overall rescue and recovery operation, albeit, I think, in my opinion, again, and others, this was not a survivable accident. But you've got to look at rescue and recovery in an area such as Washington. And finally the whole airport question. Is this the place to have a major terminal? Are the standards good enough, and matters of that kind.

LEHRER: What about how the pilots functioned in that situation on that day?

Mr. MILLER: Well, they can operate only as good as the information that's made available to them, and this is why I think, as the investigation progresses, and it will, well beyond this hearing -- you have to understand what the, in our trade we call the information-transfer problem. Was it -- possible preventive action or information available at one point? Did it get to the right people? In what form? And that's where this overall question, I think, of possible deregulation effects on this accident.

LEHRER: Finally, let me ask you this, Mr. Miller. You have been quoted as saying that you believe this Air Florida crash will be known as a classic accident, one that will be talked about and explored for years to come. Why is that?

Mr. MILLER: Well, it's because it has so many different aspects to it. You have the traditional man factor. You obviously have that in the judgment of the pilots to take off under the conditions they did: their perception of the engine and instruments. You have the machine factor in terms of the performance of the 737 in icing conditions. You have the environmental factor -- the icing we talked about a moment ago. I think you have the management factor -- not just Air Florida and not -- you've got to talk about the FAA; you have to look at the total aviation system. And, please, Jim, I don't mean to imply by what I'm saying that there are clear-cut deficiencies. I'm saying the case illustrates this, and the investigation as it pursues, to be complete, has to look at all these factors.

LEHRER: Thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: One of the questions raised following the incidents this winter has been, why do we let people fly in such weather? It was raised in a Washington Post article called "It's Too Easy to Blame the Pilots." The author was Douglas Feaver, who has reported extensively on aviation issues.First of all, Mr. Feaver, going on what has just been said, do you think the pilots are likely to take some of the blame in this, and why is it too easy to blame them?

DOUGLAS FEAVER: Well, I don't think there's any question that the pilots will take some of the blame, and I'm not suggesting that they shouldn't have in that article. I'm just suggesting that it's too simple to limit the blame to the pilots and not look at the other factors in the aviation system, some of which Mr. Miller just mentioned.

MacNEIL: I see. Well, let's go to the questions of winter flying. Why do airlines and the other people concerned allow flying in such weather?

Mr. FEAVER: Well, airlines do it for a lot of reasons, the same reasons that I think we get in an automobile and drive across town in a snowstorm when we think we might not. There are a lot of subtle pressures that are there, and aircraft have a remarkably fine safety record, even in bad weather.

MacNEIL: Is there pressure to keep planes flying when perhaps they shouldn't or when it's questionable for them to fly?

Mr. FEAVER: That's something that pilots will tell you, that there is some subtle pressure, but it's ultimately their decision. And I don't think pilots are suicidal.

MacNEIL: And is it the responsibility of the pilot to say, in circumstances like this, "Hey, it's too bad out there to take off," or "Okay, I will." Is it still the pilot's responsibility?

Mr. FEAVER: Yes, it is ultimately the pilot's responsibility; whether to say in circumstances like this, is what the area of the debate is, but there's no question as far as regulation is concerned -- as far as federal regulation is concerned -- that it is the pilot's final decision.

MacNEIL: What are the areas of debate in circumstances like this?

Mr. FEAVER: Well, the areas that I'm suggesting here are that, perhaps because the system is a bit more complicated than just the pilot, you have the subtle pressures from airlines, subtle pressures from the airport in this particular case to -- it had been closed for awhile -- to clear some space on the ramp, so subtle pressures from the air traffic system. There are a lot of things building on people, and it's always a little difficult to be the guy who says, "No, I don't want to do that."

MacNEIL: You heard what Mr. Miller has just said. Has deregulation become another pressure, subtle or not, in this whole system?

Mr. FEAVER: I don't think we have any proof of that yet. But as I also said in that article, I think there's a suggestion that that's a possibility.There are a lot of new airlines out there that have grown very rapidly and the question of how well the FAA can maintain a good surveillance over those airlines at a time when its budget is being cut, I think, is a very real one.

MacNEIL: Has it added a further factor of competitiveness? I mean, we all know that there are a number of airlines right at this moment which are in bad straits financially. Is that providing extra pressure to keep planes going, no matter what the circumstances?

Mr. FEAVER: That's really a question I can't answer, but it's certainly a question that should be asked.

MacNEIL: I see. Well, what do you think is the most significant issue arising out of these incidents this winter?What have they revealed to you as an aviation expert?

Mr. FEAVER: Well, I regard myself in a bit not as a pilot, but as the passenger in the cabin. I want to know -- I want to be certain that it's safe. And if the weather is questionable, or it appears questionable to a reasonable man, I want to be certain that somebody is making a decision based on the best information available.

MacNEIL: Would it be fair -- I don't want to put words in your mouth. Would it be fair to put it this way, that these incidents have revealed that however amazing the safety record of the airlines is -- and as they often say, it's safer statistically than every other means of transportation -- that bad weather has suddenly revealed that there are a whole lot of potential little weaknesses in the system, not just one, but a great many?

Mr. FEAVER: Well, this is part of what Chuck Miller is saying when he calls it a classic accident. Indeed, there are so many accidents that we can all recall here are a number of little things going wrong, any one of which could have gone wrong without the accident happening. But when they combine, then you have an accident.

MacNEIL: Well, thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: We get the pilot's perspective next. It comes from Captain Homer Mouden, who was a pilot for Braniff and for Midcontinent Airlines in a 36-year career in commercial aviation that included being in charge of air safety for Eastern Airlines. He is now with the Flight Safety Foundation, an independent organization which monitors and studies aviation safety. Captain, from a pilot's point of view, how dangerous is it flying in a snowstorm?

Capt. HOMER MOUDEN: I think that the difficulty in making a yes or no answer to something like that is that snow ranges all the way from very wet to very dry, from very light to very heavy, and the wind that's blowing, the rate of the snowfall -- all of these are factors which, when you're saying "in a snowstorm," it's impossible to make a flat statement of, "It's safe," or "It is not safe." Basically the problem comes down to be one of being provided with sufficiently timely information that you can have the proper knowledge to make the proper decision.

LEHRER: But in a general way, what are the dangers? I mean, what does a pilot, when he's trying to get this information -- what kind of information does he need in order to make a decision as to whether or not to fly or not fly?

Capt. MOUDEN: He needs to know the rate of the accumulation, how wet it is, how effective the de-icing, if the aircraft was de-iced --

LEHRER: If the snow is wet, that is --

Capt. MOUDEN: It sticks to the aircraft. It also is falling on the runway if it can't be cleared rapidly enough, and this of course restricts the acceleration rate. And in fact four inches of dry snow is the limiting factor for takeoff; two inches of wet snow. And, again, the range between wet and dry and a half-inch of slush is the limiting factor for takeoff. That gives you an indication of how much drag there is involved in that.

LEHRER: You understand why I'm asking these questions.As Doug Feaver said, from the standpoint of the average passenger, he's sitting in the cabin and he's looking out and it's snowing, or he's about to decide whether to get on an airplane and it's snowing and the question is, what's the pilot thinking about? Well, let's go to the icy situation on a runway. What are the factors that a pilot uses in deciding whether or not to land, number one, or to take off in that kind of situation?

Capt. MOUDEN: You're saying an icy runway?

LEHRER: Icy runway.

Capt. MOUDEN: Icing condition on the runway itself?

LEHRER: Right.

Capt. MOUDEN: Well, probably the number one would be the -- or number one and two would be the wind velocity and the direction from which the wind is blowing in relation to the runway they're going to be landing. If the wind was relatively light or steady down the runway, directly into the face of the airplane, this would make a considerable difference as to whether it was a crosswind or a courting wind. And a gusting wind would affect it even more.

LEHRER: Well, the thing that comes to mind, not so much the Air Florida crash as the Boston crash, where that World Airways plane just kept sliding -- put on the brakes and he slid and he slid and he slid and he finally slid into the water -- I mean, what kind of information should be provided a pilot in order to decide, "Hey, I don't think I'm going to land; I'm going to go somewhere else"?

Capt. MOUDEN: Well, for example, most of those airports, and I really can't say about Boston, but they have friction-measuring devices called skidometers, mumeters [?], such as that, and they measure the coefficient of friction of the runway itself. Now, I had understood that this had not been provided for them. I don't know whether they had this system there for providing it, in fact, but this would be a very significant factor to the pilot. If that pilot had received the word that the braking action was, I believe the words were "poor to nil or nil," he very well may have decided not to land.

LEHRER: Gone somewhere else. As a practical matter, Captain, we've heard and we've been told and told and told that it's the pilot's decision whether to go or no go. As a practical matter, if an airport is officially open, isn't there pressure on the pilot to go?

Capt. MOUDEN: Yes, there'd be a subtle pressure to go; however, I would say that every pilot is aware of this pressure but, being a human being, he may be subjected to it more easily one time than another.

LEHRER: As a practical matter, are there many occasions where an airport is open where pilots say, "No, thank you, I don't think I'll take off" while other planes may be taking off?

Capt. MOUDEN: Yes, I'd say there are a significant number of times in which that's the case because --

LEHRER: You ever do it in your 31 years behind -- in any --

Capt. MOUDEN: Oh, many times.

LEHRER: When other people were taking off, you said forget it?

Capt. MOUDEN: Even at times when the runway was dry and the sky was clear. And I was -- could see a thunderstorm approaching the area where I was going while another airplane taking off right in front of me might be circling the field and heading another way. And my judgment would say, now is the time to sit on the ground.

LEHRER: Finally, do you think it's perfectly proper and should not be changed that that decision should remain with the pilot?

Capt. MOUDEN: Oh, yes, providing that pilot is provided with the timely information that lets him make the proper decisions. And that's the basic thing we face today.

LEHRER: Thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: Still another question generated by the Air Florida tragedy is what procedures airport operators use during bad weather. Ray Glumack is executive director of the Minneaplis-St. Paul Airports Commission, which operates eight airports and is the third largest system in the country. Mr. Glumack was a Navy pilot and has operated a small airline himself. He's with us at public television station KTCA in St. Paul. And we apologize for the quality of the sound connection with you, Mr. Glumack. Can you hear me all right?

RAY GLUMACK: Oh, I hear you just fine.

MacNEIL: Okay. How do you maintain safety within an airport system that encounters probably as much bad winter weather as anywhere in the country?

Mr. GLUMACK: Well, bad weather, you know, starts here in November and it's with us until April, of course. And in this latitude we expect it to be just that. But we keep our airports open with what we consider a well-thought-out plan that we generated many, many years ago and that we try to perfect each and every year -- every winter.

MacNEIL: Is it a matter of some airports doing it better, like yours, because they have such consistently heavy winter weather that they're just used to it, like cities that have a lot of snowfall, whereas others just have occasional bad weather and are not used to it? Is that a difference?

Mr. GLUMACK: Well, I'm prejudiced, of course, and I think that the people that have the equipment and have the men and the manpower that we have that's trained, has an advantage in fighting snow and ice and sleet. That's part of our everyday life and that's not true in other latitudes where of course snow is a very rare thing, and they simply don't have the equipment or don't have the manpower or the experience.

MacNEIL: Could that in your view be a safety factor that some places are just not as used to it as others?

Mr. GLUMACK: Well, you know, any airport operator is going to be very, very careful that he just doesn't criticize his colleague somewhere, because he knows that for the grace of God that may be -- that may be us very shortly. So it's hard to pass judgment, but I think that every airport obviously attempts to do the best they can because the stakes are pretty high.

MacNEIL: Do you find that you have often to make a decision to close down the airport for safety reasons yourself?

Mr. GLUMACK: Well, let me brag just a bit. We aren't very experienced in closing a runway. The last time that we closed a runway was for a half-hour and that was 20 years ago. We've developed a technique here that should preserve braking action all during a blizzard or storm -- shouldn't derogate safety and should keep the airport open and operating.

MacNEIL: So in other words you think it's possible that no matter, virtually, what the kind of storm, to keep it pretty well operating, if you do the right things?

Mr. GLUMACK: We think so and our crew thinks so, and take pride in it, yes.

MacNEIL: Now, have you had pilots refusing to take off even though you were keeping the airport open, who just said on their own initiative, "No, I don't think it's safe"?

Mr. GLUMACK: Yes. That's true. That happens every once in a while and it has to do with braking action, and of course it varies from aircraft type, aircraft performance, crosswinds on therunway, pilot destinations, the kind of an instrument clearance that they've been given. All of these things enter into it. It's such a set of variables that it's hard to generalize.

MacNEIL: Do you find that deregulation is a factor in the subtle pressures the others were talking about earlier on whether to take off or how frequently or anything these days?

Mr. GLUMACK: Well, certainly I think that deregulation is indeed a real pressure; how subtle, I don't know. But it is -- the fiscal traumas that the airlines are suffering and the laissez-faire competition certainly, in my opinion, hasn't helped the situation, although every good pilot knows that he must resist pressures to do something that he really in his judgment finally believes would compromise safety.

MacNEIL: Would you say that the fiscal problems that you mentioned and the pressures they give rise to are putting the safety factor somewhat into question?

Mr. GLUMACK: Well, there's hardly a person in my business that doesn't worry about that and often wonder if that isn't so -- if the desire to survive and to have your airport -- your airline survive doesn't make you want to do things that perhaps your better judgment says you really shouldn't be doing.I don't know, but I'll tell you there's a lot of speculation, and I'm one that's speculating that way.

MacNEIL: There is. Finally, just one more question. Do you have any doubt in your own mind as a former pilot but an airport operator now, that the decision on whether to go or not to go in these circumstances should be the pilot's?

Mr. GLUMACK: Absolutely.It should be the pilot. The responsibility to go or no go, that decision belongs to the guy that sits in the left seat and wears the four stripes on his sleeve. You bet.

MacNEIL: Thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: Mr. Miller, as an aviation expert, were you as startled as I was as a complete layman to find that Minneapolis airports, which have -- Minneapolis has some of the worst weather in the world, has only closed a runway once in 20 years, and that was only for 30 minutes.

Mr. MILLER: Somewhat, but again, it's a matter of how well you can plan and prepare and have equipment for it and perhaps have a long runway as opposed to Washington National Airport.

LEHRER: You mean that, and would you agree, Captain, that the snow, no matter how heavy it is, would never be a danger if things were -- if you could operate -- I mean, if certain procedures were followed, snow is really not that big a danger?

Capt. MOUDEN: Well, of course that would depend on whether you were able to remove the snow from the runway rapidly enough so it never became a factor. Now, it may be that Minneapolis-St. Paul airport complexes have equipment and runways so they can keep -- he said "never closed a runway." I wondered at the time if he wasn't really saying, "never closed an airport" because I know many times -- and I operated out of Woll Chamberlain for many years -- that one runway --

LEHRER: Out of what?

Capt. MOUDEN: Woll Chamberlain is the Minneapolis international airport, I'm sorry.And that one runway would be closed while they were plowing it out, but another runway would be open and traffic would continue to operate.

LEHRER: Is that what you're saying, Mr. Glumack?

Mr. GLUMACK: Oh, yes, absolutely. We have parallels, so when we're working on one parallel, obviously we close that and use the other runway. We don't experience delays and, every once in a while, when the circumstances are right and we're working on the long runway, we can allow aircraft operations, and we gear our plowing too in between departures or arrivals.

LEHRER: Mr. Miller, back to the central question here that everybody's been asked about, which is the pilot being the one to make the final decision as to whether or not to go or no go. Do you think that the Air Florida crash and these other recent incidents is going to cause that question to be rethought, and should it be?

Mr. MILLER: Well, I hope not because I don't think it should be. I agree totally with the gentleman in New York that you have to, like any business, if you want to put it that way, you have to vest the final decision-making authority in one place. You start spreading it around and you're going to have chaos. I think you must approach the pilot as being in the best position, given the correct information --

LEHRER: Sitting in a cockpit with just little slits looking out? I mean, why is he in the best position to know?

Mr. MILLER: He's got some ears; he has some eyes; he has some compatriots; he has training unmatched by any group of professionals I know in the world, and I think they're pretty well motivated.

LEHRER: What's your view on this, Doug Feaver?

Mr. FEAVER: Well, I think I agree with Chuck, but I also want to be very sure that he does have -- that all of those faculties that he has are working properly and are being properly fed, if you will. That the training is just exactly what it should be. And one of the things we're hearing in the hearing this week is that perhaps the training was not everything it should have been --

LEHRER: The training of the pilots?

Mr. FEAVER: Yes. Or the crew discipline. This is one of the questions: is everything up exactly as high as it -- as professional a level as it should be? Ultimately some -- it does have to come down to one person. How could it be any other way?

LEHRER: Well, Captain, let me ask you. In general terms, do you think that the airline pilots of today are adequately trained to handle snow, icy situations and be able to make the judgment call that it takes, that these people are forced to make in these situations?

Capt. MOUDEN: Well, let's say that the vast majority of them are, but there may be cases that we will find out after the fact that they were not.I think that a typical example, which was applicable to almost every airline pilot in the world, was the information that came out of the New York, low-level wind shear accident in which every pilot in the world was retrained to handle low-level wind shear even though we thought prior to that time that we had been trained to handle wind shear. This is the type of thing that Chuck was referring to a bit ago, that we have to learn from these.

LEHRER: Do you think that's likely to happen in this case, Mr. Miller, that there's going to be some rethinking and some procedures and some whole look at training on this whole issue of snow and ice?

Mr. MILLER: Well, let's just say if I have anything to do about it in my small way and some other of my compatriots, I guarantee you there's going to be a look at that sort of thing.

LEHRER: Mr. Glumack in Minneapolis, from an airport point of view, as a result of these incidents -- now, nothing has happened in Minneapolis, obviously, but these other incidents, are you taking a look at your procedures out there to make sure that even though you have this great record and everything works great out there, but just to double check and take another look at it?

Mr. GLUMACK: Yes, of course. We do that constantly. And when an incident occurs like the incident at Logan or the Washington National, it makes us take a real good look, not only at our snow-removal program, but also at our disaster plan. And I think -- we had the opportunity to send one of our -- our medical director out to Washington National. Just a few short minutes after the accident occurred, we sent him out there not only to learn, but also to help, but mainly to bring back some lessons to us, and we've learned from it, yes.

LEHRER: We have to go. Robin?

MacNEIL: Yeah, Mr. Glumack, thank you for joining us in St. Paul; Mr. Miller, Mr. Feaver, and Mr. Mouden, thank you in Washington. Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: That's all for tonight. We will be back tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.