Expand data on air safety

Last year: NASA hit major turbulence when it refused to release data from an aborted survey of airline pilots about safety problems because making the information public could hurt airline profits and public confidence.
If the data were really that frightening, then by gosh the public ought to know.

This year: An influential federal legislator has urged that the study be resumed and expanded.
Not only pilots should be interviewed, but also ground crews and inspectors who oversee compliance with federal regulations.

Hear, hear.

Had that kind of survey been conducted, then mechanics might have reported the overdue inspections that caused airlines to ground planes and disrupt flights earlier this year, said Rep. Brad Miller, D-N.C., head of the Science and Technology subcommittee on oversight.
So NASA was worried about hurting airline profits and public confidence, huh? Well, what causes more damage:

Finding discrepancies in inspection schedules in time to deal with them an orderly fashion? Or discovering the problem at such a late date that numerous flights had to be cancelled on an emergency basis?
Now, that hurts profits and public opinion.

After NASA’s refusal to release information caused such uproar, the agency changed its tune.
NASA did release thousands of pages of interviews, once the names of the pilots had been obscured to preserve the anonymity they had been promised.
NASA said, however, that the project was scrapped because it was judged as not useful.

The Federal Aviation Administration, meanwhile, said the massive study employed flawed methodology.
The NASA data seemed to show some safety problems occurring more frequently than the FAA’s own data confirmed. Its own studies were more helpful and accurate, it said.

Mr. Miller points out, however, that Transportation Department investigators last month ruled that the FAA’s oversight of airlines was too lenient.
That doesn’t directly address the question of which agency’s survey was better and which results were more reliable.
It does raise questions about FAA credibility on safety and other issues.

If NASA’s survey was flawed — questions too broadly worded, results too dependent on subjectivity, said the FAA — then the project should not have been continued.
There was no point throwing good tax money after bad.
But the idea of the survey was excellent.

In-depth interviews with thousands of pilots, ground crew and inspectors could generate important results, including uncovering problems that more abbreviated reviews might have missed.

In the long run — the airlines respond to correct problems — that kind of information should improve public confidence and protect airline revenues.