NAOMS Now Easier To Use... Or So Agency Says

NASA plans to update its National Aviation Operations Monitoring Service, or NAOMS, website Tuesday, to add more information from pilot survey responses.

Once a relatively obscure reporting service for pilots, NAOMS gained national attention last year following revelations of NASA's withholding of the survey, which was conducted from 2001 through 2004. NASA also repeatedly denied Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests from The Associated Press to release the data.

The resulting furor prompted NASA Administrator Michael Griffin to grudgingly promise before Congress to release some of the findings -- all the while stating the results shouldn't be considered the last word on safety, and the general public shouldn't be alarmed to hear about the problems facing pilots.

Those revelations included reports of pilots falling asleep in the cockpit, and far greater-than-reported incidents of near-misses and runway incursions.

As ANN reported, NASA ultimately released some of the findings on December 31... and seemingly made it deliberately difficult for anyone reading the survey findings to make heads or tails of the data.

NASA says the data files now available on NAOMS "are essentially the same files posted to the website in late 2007 and early 2008. However, the files are packaged differently and contain fewer redactions than the original postings.

"Therefore, they provide more information from the NAOMS aviation safety surveys," the agency helpfully adds.

NASA pointedly concludes its release by noting the announcement "fulfills NASA's commitment to provide as much information as possible without compromising the anonymity and confidentiality promised to survey participants or the commercial confidentiality of the airlines and organizations involved. It also ensures that aviation safety researchers and the public have access to additional information that may be used to develop future models for safety systems to monitor the National Airspace System."

The agency also says it has "no plans" to post any additional NAOMS information, beyond Tuesday's update.

FMI: www.nasa.gov/news/reports/NAOMS.html