How flight safety has evolved
By David A. Lombardo - April 1, 2009
To appreciate how safe air travel has become, it’s helpful to realize how risky it once was and to understand how rules and regulations have evolved to address that problem.
The first aviation fatality occurred on Sept. 17, 1908, when a malfunction caused Orville Wright to lose contol of his Wright Flyer while he was demonstrating the airplane to Army officials at Fort Myer in Virginia. The resulting crash killed passenger Lt. Thomas Selfridge and severely injured Wright.
Many accidents later, in 1926, Congress put the U.S. Department of Commerce in charge of air travel and commerce. In 1938, oversight responsibility for civil aviation passed to an independent government agency called the Civil Aeronautics Authority. President Franklin D. Roosevelt eventually split that authority into two agencies, the Civil Aeronautics Administration and the Civil Aeronautics Board. The CAA issued pilot and aircraft certification, enforced safety regulations and developed new air routes, while the CAB enacted safety rules, investigated crashes and regulated economic aspects of the airline industry.
Meanwhile, air travel remained far from safe. In his 1939 book, Wind, Sand and Stars, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote that aircraft malfunctions and accidents were so common when flying the mail over the Sahara Desert that it was customary to send two aircraft so the second one could pick up the mail and continue after the first one crashed.
Seventeen years later, the U.S. government took greater notice of air safety after a United Airlines DC-7 collided with a Trans World Airlines Super Constellation as both aircraft flew low over the Grand Canyon to give their passengers an up-close view. The resulting 128 deaths prompted Congressional hearings into airspace and air traffic control management amid much fanfare but with little resolve.
About two years later, in 1958, two more midair collisions, this time between military jets and airliners, resulted in another 61 fatalities. Congress had had enough and moved to improve air traffic control and establish a comprehensive federal agency to oversee aviation. The resulting Federal Aviation Act of 1958 transferred the functions of the Civil Aeronautics Administration to a new independent body, the Federal Aviation Agency. (“Administration” replaced “Agency” in 1967, when the FAA became part of the Department of Transportation.)
“When I first went to work for the FAA in the late 1960s, the accident rate was still appalling,” said a retired FAA inspector who still does contract work for the agency and asked that his name not be used. “In 1972 there were 3,214 aviation-related fatalities. Think about it. That’s an average of about eight people a day. You know the old joke about what’s the biggest lie in aviation? ‘I’m from the FAA and I’m here to help you.’ The truth is, thanks in large part to FAA oversight and regulation, that number dropped to 876 last year.”
Share This Article With Others