Editorial: Passengers’ right to know

Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2007 | 7:04 a.m.

A NASA survey of U.S. pilots suggests that near-collisions and runway interference among aircraft happen far more often than previous government studies have found.

But, astonishingly, NASA officials are withholding the results of their agency's research because, they say, they don't want to upset air passengers.

According to the Associated Press, which had sought the report through the federal Freedom of Information Act, NASA interviewed about 24,000 commercial and general aviation pilots over a four-year period that ended in early 2005. The results were completed and the project was shut down more than a year ago.

Last week NASA ordered the company that had conducted the research to purge from its computers all data related to the publicly funded $8.5 million survey, AP reports. Thomas Luedtke, an associate administrator for NASA, told AP that the report's findings "present a comprehensive picture" of the commercial air travel industry but added that the results could damage passengers' confidence.

No airlines or pilots were named in the survey, so it's not as if releasing the results would have unfairly targeted a particular company or pilot. Besides, it's not NASA's call to make as to what might undermine passengers' confidence.

The results showed that the numbers of close calls on runways, bird strikes and near-midair collisions reported by the pilots were nearly twice as high as the number of such incidents logged by conventional government monitoring systems.

NASA officials told AP that the survey was done to develop new ways for the airline industry to track safety trends. Federal Aviation Administration officials have taken issue with the NASA figures, saying they doubt NASA's methodology.

Still, as Rep. Brad Miller, D-N.C., chairman of a House Science and Technology subcommittee, said, "There is a faint odor about it all."

In our view, the odor is anything but faint.

It is outrageous that NASA officials are trying to hide information that could affect the safety of millions of air travelers. And it is arrogant of NASA to think that such secrecy is in passengers' best interests. If there is doubt about NASA's methodology, then let that be part of an open and public disclosure and discussion of these figures.