Until the FAA's operating premise is redefined to exclude any commercial considerations toward the US airlines,this tragedy could easily reoccur.The agency has always operated on the principle of "how many people can we kill each year before that delicate balance between airline appeasement and passenger/public confidence is upset."The NTSB,the true nightwatchman of American aviation safety,has continually been thwarted by the FAA's "tombstone technology" and its overt commercial make-up.
Safety issues are diametrically opposed to commercial considerations.The travelling public must be made aware of this and realise that their continued safety will be at the expense of low airfares.
The technology and personnel expertise are on hand;their implementation has been resisted purely on economic grounds.
Now that we have up to 10,000 people dead,perhaps the federal government will finally take heed and act accordingly.
Initially,the financial burden of implementing these safeguards must rest with the federal government.Airlines are already posting losses of $6bn.
Steps that must be taken immediately:
i)Introduction of 15000 airmarshalls,no private contractors,trained by the elite Deltaforce,who answer to no-one but the federal government.
ii)The immediate replacement of all privately-contracted airport personnel with federal equivalents.
iii)Congressional financial supprt for introduction of state-of-the-art screening devices at ALL US AIRPORTS.
iv)A redefining of the role of the commercial airline pilot to include additional training in combatting the terrorist threat.This should include a full and open discussion on whether pilots should be armed.Over 60% of US airline pilots come from military backgrounds.
Pilots all over the world are reeling from the reality that a handful of terrorists armed with knives were able to commandeer a flight and inflict such tragedy.Those brave pilots' inability to determine their own destiny and that of their passengers is not a self-indictment,far from it.Rather,it is a condemnation of the inadequate infra-structure in which they were forced to operate.Aviation saftey must now be unequivocally disentangled from the distraction of economics.It is possible if federally sponsored.