Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC David Learmount/LONDON
A COURT DECISION ordering USAir to provide lawyers with internal safety-audit data which the airline thought was protected from compulsory public release by the Federal Aviation Administration could seriously damage US efforts to set up an international safety programme.
The Supreme Court ruling came just days before US President Bill Clinton signed an FAA re-authorisation Bill which protects from compulsory public release safety information which is provided voluntarily to the FAA, says FAA manager for the safety-analysis division, Chuck Fluet.
The Bill, signed on 9 October, is the first step towards trying to encourage airlines to assemble and then share, through the embryo Global Analysis and Information Network (GAIN), de-identified safety data which would enable trends to be tracked, thus preventing accidents.
The Bill does not protect corporate-safety databases, only information passed voluntarily to the FAA. Fluet admits that the Court decision bodes ill for getting the US airline industry to submit data for the proposed international GAIN programme.
USAir had appealed to the Supreme Court against a lower-court order requiring it to provide internal-safety audits to lawyers acting for victims of the 2 July, 1994, USAir McDonnell Douglas DC-9 wind-shear accident at Charlotte, North Carolina. The USAir appeal has been refused.
The airline argues that it should not be forced to turn over the results of a voluntarily conducted internal-safety audit, on the grounds that such action would discourage audits and so harm public safety.
Source: Flight International
