U.S. on Pace to Cut Accidents by 80%

After two of the worst airline crashes of the 1990s -- TWA Flight 800 and ValuJet Flight 592 -- a White House commission headed by Vice President Gore issued a recommendation that many scoffed at.

The accident rate should be cut 80% over the next 10 years, the commission said.

The goal issued in 1997 seemed impossible at the time. There were many ideas on how to improve safety, but little consensus about priorities and who should pay for improvements.

Nine years have passed, and, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, the nation is on a pace to meet that goal.

The programs and safety systems credited with having the most impact:

* A joint government-industry group, the Commercial Aviation Safety Team, prioritized safety improvements and has taken action against all of the top aviation killers.

For example, because the majority of crashes occur as planes near airports and land, the airlines and the FAA have taken dozens of steps to simplify the approach paths to airports.

*Airlines now track thousands of flights a day with computers. Just as crash investigators study "black box" recorders after an accident, all but one of the nation's major carriers now comb through records detailing every second of a flight.

The lone exception, American Airlines, is in the process of starting its program.

Computers search for signs that safety was compromised so that minor problems get solved before they can lead to accidents.

At United Airlines, for example, the safety department had received only a handful of reports a year that pilots had flown at the wrong altitude. But, when the airline began studying computer records of its flights, it found that as many occurred in a month as had been reported in an entire year, according to Capt. Hank Krakowski, United's vice president for safety. The problem was eliminated by training and new procedures.

"This is a way to have kind of a constant EKG, if you will, on the quality of safety," Krakowski says.

*All large airlines have channels for pilots and others to anonymously report safety problems or errors.

"The only way you are going to (improve safety) is if you get as much information as you can about those near misses that occur out there," says Capt. Terry McVenes, safety chairman of the Air Line Pilots Association. The union has agreed to help carriers investigate incidents in exchange for assurances that pilots won't be punished for coming forward.

*All large airlines conduct more pilot training than is required under federal rules.

Airlines focus on how to avoid pilot mistakes. Pilots are taught to check on fellow crewmembers and to speak up if they have any concerns.

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