Peenie Wallie: NTSB Pleas Fall on Deaf Ears at the FAA and Department of Homeland Insecurity

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January 01, 2005

NTSB Pleas Fall on Deaf Ears at the FAA and Department of Homeland Insecurity

The NTSB is responsible for, among other things, making air travel safer in the U.S. They have a list of issues that they feel should be corrected in commercial aircraft, based on previous aviation mortality. However, the FAA, which is responsible for telling the regulating the commerical airlines, has a slightly different charter. Their goal is to keep the planes flying. So, they basically look at the NTSB recommendations, say they'll cost too much to implement, and keep the birds in the air. It's a classic example of "agency capture", whereby a government bureaucracy becomes a puppet of the industry it's charged with regulating. The FAA is deep in the pockets of the commercial airlines, and they basically ignore what the NTSB recommends.

NTSB Most Wanted Transportation Safety Improvements

Somehow, the Fear Mongers at the Department of Homeland Insecurity have decided we need to install missile defense systems on all 6,800 commercial airlines in the U.S., at a projected cost of around $10 billion. This would be a collosal waste of money and cost untold number of lives. It is not unreasonable to assume that there is a limit to amount of money to spend to save lives in the United States. Even if we run massive deficits and tax people up to 100% of their income, there is some theoretical ceiling to the funds that can be collected and spent. Therefore, it makes sense to spend those dollars wisely, so that the greatest number of lives can be saved.

The number of people in the United States is roughly 290 million people. Heart disease kills 700,00 people a year. Flu and Pneumonia kill 60,000 a year. Alzheimer's Disease kills 50,000 a year.

In 2001, when more people died in aircraft related accidents in the United States than ever before in the history of aviation, 918 people died in plane crashes. More people choked to death (3,021) and more people drowned (3,281) than died in plane crashes. Nor is this likely to change. It isn't like gangs of muslims will suddenly begin assembling outside the airports with shoulder fired missiles, shooting down a third of the commercial fleet.

Heart disease and Alzheimer's related deaths rarely make headlines, unless they affect someone very well-know, like Ronald Reagan. Although these deaths aren't as fascinaing or as titilating as plane crashes, the people are just as dead, and every dollar that is spent on James Bond missile defense systems of commercial airliners, in direct opposition to the government agency charged with making travel safer, means less money spent on curing the known scourge that afflicts our population, and countless premature deaths.

It's my understanding that one of the findings of the Nuremberg Trials that an organ of the state didn't have to directly cause deaths to be guiltly. If they could reasonably expect that their actions would result in the deaths of innocent people, then they were guilty as well.

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