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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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time
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060589
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06058900.019
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1990-09-17
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BUSINESS, Page 56Sky StrainThe FAA is falling down on the job, critics say
Anyone planning to travel by air this summer could only be
discouraged last week by the barrage of criticism hurled at the
U.S. agency that is supposed to ensure safety in the skies. In one
report after another, the Federal Aviation Administration was
assailed for failing to do its job. In a characteristic remark, the
National Transportation Safety Board, a separate U.S. agency,
described the FAA's management as "inadequate, ineffective and
unresponsive." The week's attacks:
The NTSB issued a report finding that the FAA bore partial
responsibility for last year's accident in which the top of an
Aloha Airlines Boeing 737 tore apart in midair, killing a flight
attendant. The FAA allegedly neglected to monitor carefully Aloha's
maintenance procedures and failed to enforce closer inspections in
the airline industry even after stress cracks had been found in
older planes.
In a separate study, the NTSB chronicled serious flaws in the
air-traffic-control system for Southern California's airports.
Though the FAA knew of cramped working conditions in control towers
and a high level of errors, the agency allegedly took no action to
improve the situation.
A House subcommittee released a General Accounting Office
survey that found air-traffic controllers were overworked and
unhappy in their jobs. "Morale is horrible, traffic intolerable,
management insensitive," an unidentified controller told the GAO.
In the wake of all the criticism, Transportation Secretary
Samuel Skinner sought last week to put the warnings in perspective.
Said he: "The system is bulging at the seams, but it's still the
safest in the world." Perhaps so, but its watchdog has been caught
sleeping.