Airline safety is about to become less comprehensible and more controversial. That's because the Federal Aviation Administration will this month release the results of a safety audit that the airlines say was so botched by the agency as to be confusing to the flying public and damaging to carriers. It will give some bad marks to the major airlines, which carry 80% of all passengers in the world's safest system. The audits are so problematic that the Inspector General's office of the Department of Transportation has launched its own investigation into the agency's auditing process.
The FAA's audit blitz began...