Too Close For Comfort? Penton’s Air Transport World Questions Government’s Proximity To Boeing Before Grounding 787 Fleet

Washington | January 18, 2013/PRNewswire/– Did heads of the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Department of Transportation (DOT) put their credibility at risk, and perhaps air safety, too, when they reiterated their support of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner program prior to FAA’s grounding of the US fleet?

In an editorial analysis entitled, “Too Close for Comfort?” to be published in the February issue of Air Transport World, Editor-in-Chief Karen Walker observes as reports of onboard lithium-ion battery fires flared this week, US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and FAA Administrator Michael Huerta seemed unnaturally quick to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Ray Conner and defend the aircraft, even as they were announcing a review of its design and production.

“It was not without personal risk that LaHood and Huerta made public statements of their confidence in the aircraft’s safety before the reviews are concluded,” writes Walker.

Regardless of the cause of the fires or outcome of any investigation, she says, “the value of FAA’s safety review would be all the more credible had it begun from the position of clear and unequivocal independence.”

Click here to request an advance copy of Walker’s editorial analysis. Please attribute any citations to “Air Transport World, February 2013.”