Senator Patty Murray Blasts FAA Over Safety Concerns

I am sure the Boeing Company is very happy the focus has shifted to the FAA, not the Boeing Company.  Now, if we could just get Senator Murray to be interested in holding the Boeing Company accountable for their part of the problems…kinda hard though perhaps due to those campaign contributions.  GFS

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Murray blasts FAA over safety concerns

01:08 PM PDT on Thursday, April 17, 2008

By ROBERTA ROMERO / KING 5 News and Associated Press

Senator Patty Murray grills FAA over safety inspections

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) scolded the FAA at hearing Thursday on airplane inspections and passenger safety, saying “We need an FAA that actually fixes problems as they are found rather than one that rushes into a public relations campaign to assure everyone that there isn’t a problem.”

On Thursday, Murray grilled acting FAA administrator Robert Sturgill during a Senate subcommittee hearing about catch-up safety inspections that grounded thousands of flights last week, stranding close to a half million air passengers at airports across the country.

Murray asked hard questions, such as why the FAA has ignored inspector complaints, what is the exact nature of their relationship with airlines, and why are passengers having to pay the price?

Video

Raw: Murray’s opening statement during FAA hearing

Raw: Murray Q & A during FAA hearing

Raw: Statement by FAA official at hearing

Murray: FAA has ‘failed miserably

 

Murray heard regrets for inconveniencing airline passengers, some buck-passing to the airlines, and another promise to do better. 

“I regret and empathize with the disruption that that caused,” said Sturgill. 

But asked when better times will come, the Sturgill told Murray: we’ll get back to you. 

“This is frustrating. We sit here every year… We go through the same questions,” said Murray. 

Murray wanted no apologies, but reasons why the FAA failed to check up on American airlines’ progress on the now infamous MD-80 wiring inspections that suddenly grounded jets last week to comply with an airworthiness directive from a year-and-a-half ago. 

“They were given 18 months and during that 18 month time frame, the only thing the FAA did was look at paperwork. There were no physical inspections correct?” Murray pointedly asked. 

“I do not believe there were physical inspections of that particular ad,” Sturgill replied. 

Beyond the recent groundings, Murray said the FAA is not doing enough to catch airplane maintenance problems and keep passengers safe.  She prodded the FAA to step up and get a better handle on the airline industry.  Sturgill said he’s working on it. 

“We can put together some information for you on these five year inspections and get back to you on it,” said Sturgill. 

Murray replied that’s not good enough. 

“It is frustrating to this committee that has oversight over the FAA and hear the same answers year after year after year,” said Murray.  “It is frustrating to this committee to hear that the audits haven’t been done, reports haven’t been filed and we get an answer from you today sitting in front of us that you’ll get back to us. Believe me I’ve heard it before.” 

Murray directed Sturgill to get back to her with more of the information she wants within a week.

Murray added the FAA has not requested enough funding for inspectors and mechanics. She also said Congress has had to add more money to the FAA budget than requested by the Bush administration.

One other airline note: A senator asked if the FAA is ready to approve cell phone use on airliners in flight. The embattled Sturgill replied the cell phone question is way down on his to-do list.

 

Federal Air Marshall Training “A National Disgrace”

 

More Former and Current Air

Marshal Whistleblowers Coming Forward!

 

 

 

By Drew Griffin and Kathleen Johnston

CNN Special Investigations Unit

 

April 17, 2008

  

SAN DIEGO, California (CNN) — Their mission is to protect airline passengers from acts of terror on U.S. flights. But in a special investigation, former and current air marshals told CNN that the number of marshals assigned to police flights is so low that the federal agency overseeing them has drastically lowered its firearms and psychological testing standards just so it can qualify new hires.

 

More than a dozen current and former marshals said that so many federal air marshals have resigned and are not being replaced, airport screeners are being employed to fill the dwindling ranks.

 

But the Transportation Security Administration says that’s not true and that the rate of those leaving has remained at 6.5 percent a year since 2001.

 

A former federal air marshal and weapons trainer who left the agency in 2006 after four years of service said the situation was so bad that managers at his office fudged the numbers by assigning marshals to short, no-risk flights.

 

The former marshal said that was done to make it appear that the percentage of manned flights was higher than it really was.

 

“I think it’s a national disgrace,” said the former marshal, who asked not to be identified because he still works in law enforcement.  

 

The Federal Air Marshal Service was greatly expanded in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, when flights to “high-risk cities” such as New York were given special air marshal manpower priority.

 

Assignments are “intelligence-driven” and “risk-based,” the Federal Air Marshal Service said in an e-mail. But many of the marshals interviewed said it had little to do with intelligence or risk and was more about a numbers game.

 

“We were questioning how these flights could be intelligence-driven when we were flying from San Diego to Phoenix on another leg to Las Vegas back to Phoenix back to San Diego,” the former marshal said. “It’s not a threat flying on Southwest Airlines to Las Vegas.”

 

Faced with fewer qualified applicants, current air marshals said that recruiting standards have been lowered. Air marshals still patrolling flights also said the loss of so many experienced agents has led the TSA to hire airport screeners as air marshals.

 

Agency spokesman Greg Alter said in an e-mail that only “a very small number of air marshals started their careers as Transportation Security Officers [airport screeners].”

 

Alter added that all “candidates receive the best training available and enter the workforce with the skill and expertise needed to protect the traveling public.”

 

In July 2006, the Federal Air Marshal Service sent out a memo saying that new hires would no longer face mandatory psychological testing, unless the recruit admits that he or she has been treated for a mental condition.  See a copy of the internal memo.

 

TSA said it revised but did not “degrade” the psychological testing of applicants using the application and interaction with others in the service to determine mental competency.

 

On firearms training, a former weapons instructor with air marshals said that when recruits could not pass the tough federal Tactical Pistol Course, known as the TPC, it was replaced with a less rigorous shooting test the potential recruits could pass.

 

“The TPC went away very quickly because they couldn’t get enough people through it to pass,” the former air marshal trainer said. “So they dropped the tactical pistol course and went to the practical pistol course, which is a standard federal law enforcement course. It’s not nearly as quick or as dynamic as TPC.”

 

But the TSA disputes the claim, saying it altered the weapons training six years ago because marshals needed more of a police-type training program rather than military-style weapons instruction.

 

The TSA said in an e-mail that “the course of fire and minimum qualification score air marshal candidates must acquire is the same today as it has been for over six years.”

 

To replace departing air marshals, the TSA hired internally, including some administrative staff who had no college, law enforcement or military backgrounds, one current marshal said. See a copy of the TSA internal hiring announcement.

 

“To me, it’s more of an embarrassment to be a member of that agency that would allow that particular individual in the training program,” one marshal said. “I wouldn’t want them on my flight. … I don’t want them as my partner.”

 

The revelations come in the wake of a CNN investigation, in which air marshals and pilots said that only about 1 percent of the nation’s 28,000 daily domestic flights were protected by onboard, armed federal marshals.

 

The Federal Air Marshal Service disputes that figure.

 

CNN’s report about the declining number of marshals on planes also got the attention of Congress.

 

In a congressional hearing this week, the head of the Transportation Security Administration, Kip Hawley, told members of Congress that what CNN heard from the air marshals is wrong.

 

“I have to just correct on the factual basis on the CNN report about air marshals covering 1 percent. That number is absolutely wrong by an order of magnitude, and it was a guess by the folks there, and I just have to say that number is completely false.”

 

Hawley would not say what percentage of flights has air marshals. That’s a national security secret.

 

The service hides behind national security to keep the public from knowing how thin coverage really is, air marshals said.

 

The Federal Air Marshal Service continues to refuse CNN’s request for an interview.

 

This month, Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, who serves on the Homeland Security Committee, began holding closed-door meetings with the air marshal’s service to determine whether congressional oversight committees are getting the truth.

 

“We will keep working and continuing to make sure that the airlines are served with the appropriate law enforcement that ensures the safety of the traveling public. We, too, are not interested in having funny numbers,” Jackson Lee said.

 

Jackson Lee said that the committee has not finished its work and that she is convinced American air travel is safe for passengers. “It is important to restate and to re-emphasize: This is not an open opportunity for those who would attempt to do Americans harm. 

 

We are light years from where we were in 2000. We have trained personnel. They’re being utilized, and we feel that we are steps ahead of where we were, but we want to get better. And that’s what we intend to do.”

 

After seeing CNN’s initial report, Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts sent a letter to Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff asking for clarity on the number of air marshals protecting domestic flights and sought a response by April 11.

 

The senator is still waiting, Kerry’s staff said. 

 

 

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