FAA wants to keep bird strike records confidential

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Aviation Administration is proposing to keep secret from travelers and the public its vast records on how frequently and where commercial planes are damaged by hitting flying birds.

The agency’s formal secrecy proposal came just after FAA officials had said they were going to release the huge database to The Associated Press in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

As President Barack Obama promises a more open government, the FAA says it needs to expand secrecy to cover this safety data because if the public learned the information then airports and air carriers wouldn’t report damage from birds.

“To have the government actually chill public access to safety information is a step backward,” said James Hall, former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. “Public awareness is an essential part of any strong safety program.”

SNIP

“It sounds like the FAA is going back to their early 1990s view that their job is to promote the carriers and look out for their bottom line,” said Mary Schiavo, former Transportation Department inspector general. “They were criticized for that and then said they also were concerned with safety, but this sounds like they’re reverting to being cheerleaders for the industry.”

SNIP

The FAA’s proposal is reminiscent of NASA’s efforts in late 2007 to withhold air safety data from the AP because it claimed that revealing the information could damage the public’s confidence in airlines and affect airline profits. NASA released parts of the data months later under pressure from Congress and the public, disclosing thousands of pages that were deliberately scrambled so no one could identify the pilots who were promised anonymity to participate in the government safety survey.

Folks this isn’t a ‘national security issue’.  This is an agency of the Federal government deciding that we don’t need to know about bird strikes on aircraft.  It seems that the FAA is once again acting in the best interests of the industry and not in the best interests of the flying public.  It also appears that the FAA doesn’t want the public making their own informed decisions about when and from where we should fly.

Folks this is the same government that now wants to run medical care, nationalize banks, and generally be in charge of everything.  Personally I’ve never had any faith in government to do anything correctly.  Governments forte seems to lie in being part of the problem and never part of any solution.