Airlines, Pilots Say Safety Plan in Jeopardy

Airlines and pilot groups say they may be forced to curtail a critical federal safety program after a federal judge's order requiring a regional carrier to disclose pilot incident reports to families suing the airline over a fatal 2006 crash.

Pilots and other workers, including flight attendants and mechanics, voluntarily file incident reports as part of a federal program to encourage disclosure in exchange for confidentiality. The workers are almost never punished for revealing their errors if they quickly report them and if their statements are the only source of information about the incident. Workers have filed tens of thousands of such reports in the past decade, which regulators and the airlines analyze to find potential hazards.

Safety experts worry that the judge's decision may lead some airlines to leave the program or deter employees from participating.

"It is a dangerous precedent," said Kenneth P. Quinn, general counsel for the Flight Safety Foundation. "There will be a chilling effect on employees desiring to voluntarily cooperate in the programs."

Dozens of airlines participate in the Federal Aviation Administration's Aviation Safety Action Program, which started in the mid-1990s.

Airlines may also stop participating in a program that allows them to cull data retrieved from planes that help pinpoint problems that might go unnoticed or unreported by pilots, airlines and safety experts said.

More than two dozen families are suing Comair, a wholly owned subsidiary of Delta Air Lines, over the fatal crash of one of its regional jets on Aug. 27, 2006, in Lexington, Ky. The pilots tried to take off from the wrong runway, which was too short for their plane. The jet hit a berm and exploded, killing 49 people on board. Only the co-pilot survived. The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the pilots were mostly to blame for the crash.

Lawyers representing the families requested the airline's pilot reports detailing other runway incidents because they think the documents might show that Comair did not take action after learning of similar previous problems.

"The reports . . . directly relate to whether Comair appropriately evaluated and/or considered the safety information its own pilots were reporting," the families' lawyers argued in court papers.

Comair, the Air Line Pilots Association, which represents pilots at the airline, and trade groups filed briefs seeking to block the request. They argued that Congress and the FAA intended the reports to remain confidential. They also worried that carriers would abandon the reporting program because the information could be used against them in lawsuits. They noted that the program has helped regulators and airlines reduce a variety of threats.

But Magistrate Judge James B. Todd ruled that the reports must be turned over to the families because Congress did not bar the release of such documents in such circumstances. He also wrote that he did not believe that disclosure of the documents would hamper the safety program.

"There are many incentives for reporting to continue, not least of which is the future personal safety of the crew and passengers," Todd wrote, adding that such programs reduce safety threats that could lead to lawsuits.