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NASA Releases Data From National Aviation Study
Motley Rice
January 3, 2008
On December 31, 2007, NASA made good on its promise to Congress that data gathered in its four-year aviation study would be released by the end of the year. Tasked with the $11.3 million federal pilot survey, NASA’s National Aviation Operations Monitoring Service (NAOMS) project began in April 2001 with the goal of improvements in identifying and preventing aviation accidents. The data released on the last day of 2007 represents survey responses from more than 30,000 air carrier and general aviation pilots from 2001 to 2004. The survey differs in that pilots were contacted and interviewed directly by researchers, eliciting an 80% response rate. The NASA study did not wait for data through the anonymous reporting of incidents by pilots or by rely on information from black boxes or other sources. Representative Brad Miller (D-North Carolina), chairman of the Investigation and Oversight subcommittee of the House Committee on Science and Technology, stated, “If 80 percent of the pilots they ask[ed] agreed to sit still for a half-hour survey, voluntarily, my conclusion is that the pilots had something they wanted others to know about.”
NASA’s reluctance to release the results of the NAOMS study was the object of media scrutiny in early 2007, when NASA denied release of these same results in an effort to maintain public confidence in the airline industry. However, after a Congressional investigation, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin promised to make the data, at least in part, available to the public by year-end.
In an effort to fulfill this promise, NASA released 16,208 pages of findings on December 31.1The NAOMS data was provided in a format difficult to analyze. The sheer volume of the pilots responses, lacking context such as the type of plane, pilot’s experience and other details, makes it nearly impossible for the concerned traveling public to understand or translate.3
Griffin responded to complaints and allegations, saying that the survey was poorly managed and that he has trouble “see[ing] any data [in the report] that the traveling public would care about or ought to care about.” 2 He stated further, “We were asked to release the data and I said that we would, and I’ve done that.” Griffin also stated that his agency had no plans to do further work with the data after the completing the surveys.2 Representative Miller suggested that the release of data did not fulfill the Congressional mandate and that Griffin’s comments directly oppose previous expert statements before the committee.1
The current documents illustrate at least 1,266 incidents of aircraft flying within 500 feet of each other; over 1,312 cases of sudden changes of at least 300 feet in altitude; 166 reports of pilots landing without ground clearance at an airport with an active air traffic control; 513 reports of hard landings; and 4,267 cases of aircraft colliding midair with birds.1 The complete release of information can be found at http://www.nasa.gov/news/reports/NAOMS.html. These numbers are nearly double the statistics previously made public by the government.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) plans to merge the NAOMS findings with data it has gathered in the past; however this will be difficult as the survey did not track with FAA report language.2
1 NASA criticized for handling of airline data, Alan Levin, USA TODAY – January 2, 2008
2 NASA gives glimpse of air safety survey, Rita Beamish, Associated Press, USA TODAY –January 1, 2008
3 NASA Offers Airline Safety Data, Matthew L. Wald, The New York Times – January 1, 2008
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