DOT, FAA Sued in Bid to Force Air Safety Changes

NEWARK, NJ -- Airline safety advocates filed a lawsuit Tuesday to force the U.S. Department of Transportation to adopt long-standing safety recommendations in the wake of a deadly plane crash in New York earlier this month.

The complaint, brought by Gail Dunham, executive director of the National Air Disaster Alliance/Foundation, was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., and names Department of Transportation Secretary Ray H. LaHood and Lynne A. Osmus, acting administrator for the Federal Aviation Administration.

Dunham's group says the government is moving too slowly on improving air safety.

The lawsuit seeks to force the government to approve safety measures recommended by the National Transportation Safety Board as far back as the mid-1990s.

The suit accuses the DOT and FAA of continuing to "shirk their duties to the traveling public" by not doing so.

The DOT oversees the FAA, which has the power to put new safety measures in place. The NTSB is an independent investigative body.

Listed in the lawsuit are recommendations made in 1996 that focus on aircraft performance in icing conditions, spurred by the 1994 crash of an American Eagle flight in Roselawn, Indiana, that killed 68 people.

Icing has been cited by NTSB investigators as a factor in the crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407 - a twin turboprop similar to the American Eagle plane - in Clarence, New York, on Feb. 12, in which all 49 people on board and one person on the ground were killed. The investigation is expected to take a year or more to determine the cause of the crash.

Laura Brown, a spokeswoman for the FAA, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.