Transportation Secretary Overrules FAA’s Attempt To Keep Records Secret
April 25, 2009 1 Comment
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has overruled the FAA’s attempt to keep records on bird strikes secret. The issue came up when a U.S. Airways jet was forced to crash land in the Hudson River following a bird strike that knocked out the plane’s engines. The incident occurred this past January.
In the aftermath, the media requested records on the frequency of such bird strikes. Incredibly, the FAA tried to make the records secret!
Bowing to public pressure, and the threat of a lawsuit under the Freedom Of Information Act, the Transportation Secretary ordered that the FAA release the information that had been requested.
Why was that so hard????
Fox News: FAA Releases Bird Strike Data To The Public
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Releasing the data was the right thing to do on the part of the FAA. The right thing to do on the part of the public is to use the data as a way to understand a problem and not as the final answer. Keep in mind that the FAA bird strike database is voluntary, so you can’t just look at the raw numbers. Aggressive reporting is only one reason why there may be many reports in the database from a particular airport or airline. Aviation organizations like the AirSafe.com Foundation offer many insights into how one should approach aviation safety data. Many of their bird strike examples are at birds.airsafe.org and strikevideos.blogspot.com.