Safety Agency's Chief Is Wary of Lobbying

WashPost ^ | Thursday, January 6, 2005 | By Sara Kehaulani Goo

[Archangelsk]

The chairman of the nation's independent transportation safety agency said yesterday that she is concerned about the growing impact of outside lobbying and lawsuits on the organization's ability to investigate accidents fairly and quickly.

Citing a contentious battle between American Airlines and Airbus SAS over the cause of the nation's most deadly airplane accident, the 2001 crash of American Airlines Flight 587 in Belle Harbor, N.Y., Ellen Engleman Conners said that repeated meetings of both parties with the National Transportation Safety board staff delayed the agency's final report.

"The potential for contamination to the investigation exists," Conners said, although she said that no investigation thus far has been swayed by the lobbying. "What we're concerned about is information presented that is not pertinent to the investigation."

[Archangelsk]

This is why guys like Doug Feith (a former chief investigator for NTSB) can throw any party off the investigation and off the site.

[Archangelsk]

Ping

[Archangelsk]

Ping-a-ling