FAA makes public its airplane-bird strike data

[April 24, 2009]  WASHINGTON (AP) -- The public is getting its first uncensored look at the government's records of where and when airplanes have struck birds over the last 19 years, thanks largely to pressure resulting from the dramatic ditching of a US Airways jet in the Hudson River after bird strikes knocked out both its engines.

Finally, travelers will be able to learn which airports have the worst problems with birds.

Since 1990, the Federal Aviation Administration has been collecting reports voluntarily submitted by commercial and private pilots, the military, airline mechanics, and airport workers who clear dead birds and other animals from runways. The agency has released aggregate data over the years so it's known that there are records of more than 100,000 strikes and that reported strikes more than quadrupled from 1,759 in 1990 to 7,666 in 2007.

But the FAA has always feared the public can't handle the full truth about bird strikes, so it has withheld the names of specific airports and airlines involved.

Aware that some airports do a better job reporting strikes than others and that some face tougher bird problems, the agency said the public might use the data to "cast unfounded aspersions" on those who reported strikes and the airports and airlines in turn might turn in fewer voluntary reports.

But this week Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood overruled the FAA's attempt to throw a formal cloak of secrecy over the data before it had to reveal the records in response Freedom of Information Act requests from The Associated Press and other news organizations.

The database was to be posted on the Internet at midmorning Friday.

With President Barack Obama promising a more open government and releasing secret Bush administration legal memos about harsh interrogations of terrorism suspects, LaHood said he found it hard to justify the FAA's plan to withhold records about birds flying around airports.

LaHood also noted the public bridled at being kept in the dark. In addition to newspaper editorials coast to coast opposing the FAA's secrecy, members of the public commenting directly to the FAA opposed it by a 5-to-1 margin.

The latest chapter in the history of the database began Jan. 15 when US Airways Flight 1549 slammed into a flock of Canada geese over New York and lost all power. US Airways pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger miraculously managed to ditch the Airbus A320 intact in the Hudson River and all 155 aboard survived.

Within days, The Associated Press requested the FAA's bird strike database. As some agency officials told the AP they were preparing to release it, the FAA quietly proposed a new rule on March 19 that would extend formal secrecy protection to the records and sought public comment on the idea.

Reflecting the views of many who objected, Roger Maloof, a mechanical engineer from New Hampshire, wrote that "this is like hiding which roads are more dangerous in winter to protect the interests of the businesses on those roads."

A survivor of Flight 1549, Donald C. Jones, director of an association of endocrinologists in Jacksonville, Fla., was among several who suggested the remedy for uneven bird strike reporting was to make the reports mandatory, not secret.

For a decade, the FAA has refused to adopt the National Transportation Safety Board's 1999 recommendation that reporting be made mandatory to get a more complete database.

Although the FAA brags that the voluntary database is "unparalleled," the agency has conceded that only about 20 percent of strikes are recorded on it.

In comments opposing the FAA plan, Paul Eschenfelder, an aviation consultant from Spring, Texas, wrote that in 2004 a government-industry working group, which was writing new FAA design standards for engines to withstand bird strikes, "agreed that the FAA wildlife database was unusable due to its incompleteness" and paid Boeing Co. "to develop a cogent database that all agreed was superior" because it combined the FAA records with those of several engine manufacturers and British records.

On Thursday, acting safety board chairman Mark V. Rosenker said he "was particularly gratified to read the secretary's (LaHood's) comments in the news media today suggesting he would support making these reports mandatory."

[Associated Press; By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN]

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