Lawmakers accuse FAA of inaccurate testimony
Democrats question last week's testimony of agency officials on safety meetings with airlines, repair stations.
Top House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Democrats Tuesday accused FAA officials of giving "inaccurate and misleading" testimony during a hearing last Thursday on lax aviation safety oversight by the agency.
Democrats are targeting testimony of three FAA officials regarding whether agency safety inspectors and managers were ordered "to conduct special meetings with all airlines, repair stations and other regulated entities to deliver and discuss" new procedures for appealing actions by safety inspectors, according to a letter from Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar, D-Minn., Aviation Subcommittee Chairman Jerry Costello, D-Ill., and Highways and Transit Subcommittee Chairman Peter DeFazio, D-Ore. They are specifically targeting assertions by the FAA officials that agency managers and inspectors had up to one year to deliver these new procedures to airlines and others regulated by the agency.
"This relaxed approach is radically different" than a February 2004 FAA memorandum directing that meetings were to be conducted within two months, the Democrats wrote to FAA Associate Administrator for Aviation Safety Nicholas Sabatini; James Ballough, director of the agency's flight standards service; and Thomas Stuckey, who oversaw FAA safety inspections at Southwest Airlines.
Transportation Secretary Mary Peters and acting FAA Administrator Robert Sturgell were sent copies.