Says NASA Does Not Place Commercial Interests Ahead Of Safety

In a measured response, on Wednesday NASA Administrator Michael Griffin (shown below) expressed regret over the agency's stated reason for refusing to publicly release a reportedly damning survey of air safety problems, reported by the nation's airline pilots.

As ANN reported, NASA tasked a contractor to conduct the phone survey of roughly 24,000 commercial and general aviation pilots over nearly four years, until the start of 2005. The survey found near-collisions and runway incursions occur much more frequently than the government once thought... as much as twice as often.

The agency then shut down the project... and refused to disclose the results publicly. Last week, NASA took the additional step to order the contractor to purge the survey results.

The Associated Press reports Griffin disagrees with a senior official's written reason for withholding results of the $8.5 million survey. Associate administrator Thomas Luedtke said the agency didn't want the public's confidence in airlines shaken in releasing the report... as that could affect airline profits.

"This rationale was based on case law, but I do not agree with the way it was written," Griffin responded. "I regret the impression that NASA was in any way trying to put commercial interests ahead of public safety. That was not and will never be the case."

Griffin's statement follows his earlier comments, expressing apparent wonderment at repeated denials of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests by The Associated Press to obtain the survey's results.

"I have just been made aware of the issue involving information from a NASA survey of airline pilots regarding safety issues being withheld under the Freedom of Information Act," Griffin asserted Monday.

Revelations of the survey's apparent squelching prompted the House Science and Technology Committee to launch an investigation into NASA's decision to withhold the survey. A public hearing is scheduled for October 31.

Several members of Congress also demand NASA release information of the survey. "We need the information for the safety of the flying public," Florida Senator Bill Nelson, chairman of the Commerce, Science and Transportation subcommittee on space and aeronautics, said Wednesday.

Other lawmakers from the House Science and Technology committee notified Battelle Memorial Institute, the private contractor that conducted the survey, directing it retain all original documents and copies. NASA previously ordered those documents returned, and copies purged from Battelle's computers.

A spokeswoman for Battelle said NASA's instructions was consistent with its contract... implying it's too late for lawmakers to get those documents from the company.

FMI: www.nasa.gov