Our Opinion: NASA move on safety report is misguided
Tuesday, October 23, 2007 11:19 AM PDT
A decision by NASA to deny public access to an extensive survey of American commercial airline pilots regarding safety sends a troubling signal concerning transparency.
The $8.5 million safety review consisted of phone interviews with more than 20,000 pilots over a four-year period.
The Associated Press found out about the study and then sought the report, but the news agency was stymied because the agency said releasing the information would damage the confidence of the American public with airline safety and, potentially, hurt airline profits.
At least on one level, the apparent honesty of the agency regarding its stonewalling is refreshing. In this day and age of the “war on terror” many government agencies, once agents of the people, simply shut off information streams with no explanation.
Yet NASA’s honesty on why it will not release the information hardly makes up for its decision to withhold the data in the first place.
When it comes to safety, especially regarding a subject like airlines, the American people have a right to know.
The Associated Press was able — through an unnamed source — to discover that in the report pilots described more strikes by birds on airplanes and twice as many near mid-air collisions on U.S. Airlines than first thought.
Hard data, though, on the subject is missing because of the NASA plan to hide the information. Which means the American people will not gain the opportunity to decide whether the airline safety situation is serious.
The decision by the space agency to withhold the report is a wrong one.
