WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Federal safety officials who investigate air crashes have told the Federal Aviation Administration they "strongly disagree" with the regulatory agency's proposal to make secret its data on when and where collisions between birds and airplanes take place.
National Transportation Safety Board acting chairman Mark Rosenker said in a letter to the FAA released Wednesday that withholding the data could interfere with the ability of independent researchers to compare the level of bird strikes experienced by individual airports and airlines.
Such comparisons are "valid" and might aid safety efforts, the letter said.
"This lack of information could hamper efforts to understand the nature and potential effects of wildlife threats to aviation and hinder the development of mitigations for those threats," it said.
"The safety board believes that public access to all the data in the FAA Wildlife Strike Database is critical to the analysis and mitigation of the wildlife strike problem, and the board strongly disagrees with the FAA's proposal to restrict public access to these data," said the letter.
On Jan. 15, a US Airways jet was forced to land in the Hudson River after hitting a flock of birds shortly after it took off from LaGuardia Airport in New York.
Airports and airlines have been voluntarily reporting bird strikes to the FAA for more than a decade. FAA makes public some of the information, but it has been the agency's practice to withhold airport and airline specific information, making it impossible for the public to learn, for instance, which airports have a severe bird problem and which don't.
FAA officials have said it's necessary to keep specific information from the public because it might discourage voluntary reporting. The information could also be embarrassing to some airports with higher numbers of bird strikes.
FAA officials did not immediately return a request for comment from The Associated Press.
The safety board recommended to the FAA in 1999 that it require airlines to report all bird strikes, but the agency chose instead to stick with a voluntary reporting system even though FAA officials acknowledge that only a fraction of bird strikes are ultimately reported.
"The board continues to believe that mandatory reporting of all wildlife strikes would allow a more complete and accurate assessment of the wildlife strike problem and would enhance mitigation efforts," the letter said.
