The US FAA's primary concern is how the US public PERCEIVES (is fooled by) their so-called interest in safety (due to the Valuejet crash, now their primary mandate), and how the public gives its feedback to our Congress.
Certain folks in various ranks of the US FAA's "leadership" (pardon my use of this word) have as their main objective, other than stabbing each other in the back, no pun intended (while ruthlessly clawing their way up to higher GS/pay grades) levels, is to insist on proper documentation, no matter how little connection there often is between so much documentation and the operational realities of airlines and airports.
According to a former pilot at Kiwi Airlines (which consisted of many highly-experienced, former Eastern pilots etc, who each invested many thousands of their own money [maybe retirment], in order to finance/create Kiwi's very existence), the only one who I have known, Kiwi was "allegedly" shutdown after their FAA inspector (typically, he seems to have had no real airline experience) noticed that there were no printed boxes on the 'Flightcrew Training' forms for one event: windshear training-does this ring a tiny bell?
After noting that there were checkmarks o u t s i d e the pre-printed boxes on each training form, this was allegedly described as either incomplete, fraudulent or falsified documentation etc, and used as justification to shutdown a very good small airline (small risk for the all-powerful FAA), in order to show the American public, via our media, that the FAA really was doing its job, following the Valuejet crash.
. .Individual kooks and terrorists are not our only enemies in the US airline business, and never have been the only dangers. Whether this can be connected in anyone else's mind to our security situation is secondary. Regarding our citizens' sense of travel safety, the gigantic egos (god-complexes) and political clubbing characteristic of so much of our own government results in wildly distorted, comlpetely inaccurate impressions in the minds of the US public.
I'm well aware that the vast majority are hard-working, helpful employees who are with the FAA's Air Carrier, Certification, and Security Branches etc, and do excellent work, not to mention the huge Air Traffic Control system.
[ 10 February 2002: Message edited by: Ignition Override ]
[ 10 February 2002: Message edited by: Ignition Override ]</p>