(4 of 4)
Bond's final order grounding the DC-10 was sweeping, but there were critics who wanted him to go further. Most notably, the Air Line Pilots Association demanded that the entire DC-10 aircraft be re-examined from nose to tail. Declared ALPA President John J. O'Donnell: "The fight against FAA lethargy is just beginning." Bond was scheduled to be grilled by a House subcommittee this week on all aspects of his agency's handling of the DC-10 crisis.
No charge of FAA "lethargy" can be laid solely against Bond, an expert on aviation law and a private pilot himself. The most dramatic—and eventually disastrous—evidence of the agency's seeming reluctance to crack a whip over McDonnell Douglas was its timid handling of the DC-10's notorious cargo-door problem. FAA inspectors were aware that a cargo hatch blew off during certification tests in 1970. The agency ordered the problem corrected. Yet another door burst open over Windsor, Ont., in 1972, luckily without causing any deaths. Even then, the FAA reached "a gentleman's agreement" to let the manufacturer make its own fix in its own time. McDonnell Douglas failed to do so until after a Turkish Airlines DC-10 crashed near Paris in 1974, killing 346.
The new controversy over the DC-10 again raises the question of whether federal regulators work too closely with the industry they regulate to remain as critical as they should be. Certainly the DC-10 was rushed into production in the early 1970s in a successful race to catch up with the TriStar, its main rival. Were corners cut by both the manufacturer and its watchdogs in the heat of competition?
The FAA'S Daugherty, who is deeply involved in the DC-10 investigation, insists that "we are not playing footsie with the industry. The manufacturers couldn't possibly be more concerned about safety." But even Daugherty concedes that two subtle kinds of pressure are at work as huge and enormously expensive aircraft development projects go forward. One is from the outside as politicians, mainly Congressmen anxious to bring jobs and business to their districts, gently prod top FAA officials to expedite the process of approving a new plane's design and flight results. Another is what Daugherty calls "peer pressure": company engineers seeking to impress FAA examiners with their expertise in order to nudge a project along a shade faster than might be wise.
Daugherty's worries, which are also held by some in the industry, are by no means proof that corners were cut, but they do raise troublesome questions about the complicated relationship between the aviation interests and their regulators. The manufacturers, the airlines and the FAA all are striving for safety, yet the evidence stemming from the DC-10 debacle is that procedures should be tightened even more, despite the excellent safety record of the industry. In the era of the wide-bodied jet, any failure can be a disaster.