DOES AIR SAFETY HAVE A PRICE?

By ELIZABETH GLEICK

Every time a commercial airliner meets up with disaster, the flying public is forced to confront dangers it never even knew existed--remember microbursts and wind shear?--and the airlines scramble to alter policies, upgrade technology or retrain their pilots. In the case of the May 11 crash of ValuJet Flight 592, which plunged into the muck of the Everglades and killed all 110 people on board, the safety concerns are so varied--and the questions emerging about the role of the Federal Aviation Administration in regulating low-cost airlines so troubling--that it may be a while before passengers again feel that the skies are comfortable, never mind friendly.

Grudgingly, painfully, the swamp that swallowed Flight 592 is surrendering parts of the jet, as well as human remains, but it has not yielded an exact answer to what caused the crash. Investigators, wading through thick heat, razor-sharp saw grass, toxic jet fuel and the almost cartoonish threat of alligators, first speculated that the 27-year-old DC-9 was struck down by some combination of age and poor maintenance. Now they are focusing on a new culprit: the 50 to 60 oxygen generators believed to have been stowed--perhaps mistakenly--in the forward cargo hold of the aircraft. The generators, which are used on some planes to provide oxygen if the cabin undergoes sudden depressurization, can get as hot as 500 degrees F when activated; the heat, combined with the oxygen, can result in combustion.

Although ValuJet is not authorized to carry hazardous materials, the cargo manifest noted that this particular five-box shipment, destined for the company's Atlanta headquarters, was empty. In fact, there may have been a misunderstanding--what National Transportation Safety Board investigator Greg Feith has called "a terminology problem"--and possibly a fatal one: the canisters may not all have been empty; they may have merely exceeded their shelf life. Though no generators have yet been found, pieces of the salvaged wreckage, including a singed cockpit life preserver and two sooty steps from near the cockpit, indicate there was a fire on board the plane. And minutes before the crash, pilot Candalyn Kubeck told the Miami tower the cockpit was filling with smoke. Company president Lewis Jordan, a former head of Continental Airlines, has cautioned against a "rush to judgment," but told TIME late last week that to his knowledge, ValuJet was not authorized to carry the generators. Another possibility being investigated is that a short in the plane's wiring might have started the fire.

Even if this particular tragedy can be characterized as human error, however, the crash has laid bare ValuJet's uneven safety record. Since its start-up in October 1993, the airline has had more than 284 "service difficulties," according to the FAA, such as a plane rolling off the runway because of worn brakes. In the first five weeks of 1996, the carrier experienced four "incidents," as the FAA terms them: a hard landing and tail strike, a nose wheel that strayed off the runway when the crew could not see taxi lights, an aircraft that skidded on ice at low speed and a flight attendant injured in turbulence. The number and frequency of these incidents prompted the FAA to launch a 120-day "Special Emphasis Review" that resulted in extra training for the pilots and an agreement by Jordan to slow his company's rapid growth. Still, Jordan claims that his relationship with the FAA was cordial. "There is a mutual respect," he says.

That opinion was backed up, after the crash, by Department of Transportation Secretary Federico Pena, who professed satisfaction with ValuJet's zealous attention to regulators' concerns, a stance echoed by some of his colleagues. Not everyone agreed. DOT Inspector General Mary Schiavo, a presidential appointee who acts as a watchdog for all the agency's programs, including the FAA, ruffled feathers by publicly declaring she would not fly ValuJet. Perhaps she was familiar with the FAA report issued just nine days before the crash and first published by the Chicago Tribune last week. According to that document, the low-cost carriers as a group--the analysts removed the large and well-established Southwest--had an accident rate that was far higher than that of the major carriers. (Accidents include such lesser incidents as momentary loss of engine power, as well as those in which a passenger is injured or killed.) And of the upstart group, ValuJet's rate--3.06 accidents per 100,000 departures, compared with 0.43 for the 14 other low-cost carriers studied--was the second worst (Tower Air was the worst). When asked about this report, Jordan said, "We've had incidents and a tragic accident, and now we are looking forward to a high level of safety."

Why, then, did the FAA continue to defend ValuJet well into last week? Perhaps because the agency is conflicted by its dual mandate: to both promote and regulate airlines. After all, ValuJet is one of the airline industry's finest recent success stories--and there haven't been many. In the 18 years since deregulation, 161 airlines have gone out of business, but ValuJet, with its aggressively low fares and limited number of flights, turned a profit last year, earning $67.8 million on sales of $367.8 million--nearly triple its 1994 sales. Until asked by the FAA to slow its growth, the company had been buying about 1.5 planes a month. It now has 51. And with the airline industry in general toting up losses from 1990 to 1994 before finally turning a profit last year, the promotional spirit sometimes seems to have got the better of government officials. At a press conference in April, for instance, Secretary Pena crowed about the "explosive growth" of new airlines, saying that since 1993, 39 carriers have elbowed their way into the competition. "I want to see this continue," he said. "Much of my time in the aviation arena has been devoted to opening skies around the world. The beneficiary has been the flying public, who have more choices and lower prices." What Pena did not mention were those extra risks associated with the new carriers.

As the industry expands, questions have also been raised about FAA's duct-tape oversight procedures. At congressional hearings in April, for instance, an anonymous FAA staff member and a former airline employee testified that air safety is compromised by an inadequate computer system and inspectors who are not always properly trained for their assigned tasks. As a whistle blower said, "If there's not a problem, they don't go looking for it." Airline consultant Michael Boyd of Golden, Colorado, agrees. "The FAA is a safety problem itself," he asserts. "In the lower ranks, they're understaffed and undersupported by the managers above them."

In addition, to keep costs down while boosting margins, budget airlines usually buy older planes that cost less initially but require extra maintenance. They often contract out that repair work--ValuJet has three major maintenance subcontractors--which could compromise safety. "Where subcontracted maintenance is concerned, the question is whether the carrier wants the whole job or just enough to pass FAA inspection," says Charles O. Miller, a consultant who formerly served as chief aviation accident investigator for the NTSB. Miller and analyst Boyd both believe the FAA needs some sort of separate safety-management group. "You need a conscience, an organization within the organization looking at maintenance without pressures," Miller says.

Right now, paradoxically, ValuJet may be the safest way to go. By the end of last week, a second special emphasis review of ValuJet was under way. "Beginning immediately, the maintenance history of every ValuJet plane will be re-examined to ensure that the airline is meeting all of the special FAA requirements for older aircraft," FAA administrator David Hinson announced. For the short term, this has meant delays and canceled flights while the airline copes with the swarm of inspectors buzzing around the company's planes night and day.

Last week the company's stock lost altitude, and ValuJet's market value fell 27%. It is unclear whether ValuJet will hit even worse turbulence in the long term. "In the big scheme of things, accidents happen, there's a lot of fanfare, it blows off, and the company goes on," says Kit Darby, president of Air Inc., an Atlanta information service for professional pilots. Although Air Florida eventually went under after a 1982 crash in Washington, Darby believes that ValuJet, with its firmer financial footing, may well absorb this setback. "Historically people don't think about safety," says Darby. "They want to go when they want to go at a cheap price."

But other low-cost carriers are already feeling the shock waves. Mark McDonald, president and CEO of Nations Air Express, a 15-month-old start-up based in Smyrna, Georgia, says the ValuJet crash has had "a tremendous impact" on his business. "Our bookings have been dropping about 40% a day [since the crash]," he says. "There is a lot of concern out there, and it's not getting any better." Jordan, who last week appointed retired Air Force General James B. Davis as ValuJet's new "safety czar," remains convinced, though, that his company--and passengers--can again fly high. "We will be better than just keeping afloat," he insists. "We will recover from this and rise to a new level of customer confidence and become a fine airline." Much of that depends, of course, on answers still buried deep in the Florida swamp.

--Reported by Jerry Hannifin/Washington and Stacy Perman/Atlanta

With reporting by JERRY HANNIFIN/WASHINGTON AND STACY PERMAN/ATLANTA