Some small carriers fight reform efforts
Safety advocates have urged the FAA to tighten regulations for small air cargo firms -- yet many carriers are opposed.
BY RONNIE GREENE
rgreene@MiamiHerald.com
For pilot groups and safety advocates, it's the solution to air cargo's perils: ''One Level of Safety'' in the sky.
That means more inspections, safety upgrades such as black boxes and fewer hours in the air for pilots -- helping bring the industry's regulations and safety record closer in line to giant carriers.
For the air cargo owners, it means more money and the specter that some will be driven out of the business.
With air cargo safety in the spotlight amid a Miami Herald investigation, the debate will likely soon come into focus as members of Congress push for an unprecedented review of the troubled industry.
In a hearing in September, U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., pressed the issue: ``Why is the standard less for small cargo operators?''
Advocates say the safety movement would help reduce accidents in a high-pressure business dogged by equipment breakdowns, poor inspections and companies operating on thin margins.
Since 2000, there have been 71 fatal and 166 nondeadly U.S. air cargo accidents, The Miami Herald has found. Most involved carriers flying under less stringent Federal Aviation Administration rules.
''When you are talking about human life, there is just no justification for having two different levels of safety,'' said David W. Smith, past president of the Airline Dispatchers Federation, which has pushed the issue for a decade, including in a 2003 letter to the FAA.
''The recommendations we made are not received well, and the simple reason is economics,'' Smith said.
Carriers -- and the FAA -- oppose sweeping reforms.
''You cannot have the same level of safety for a 747 as you can for a small single-engine airplane,'' said Stan Bernstein, president of the Regional Air Cargo Carriers Association, a Massachusetts group representing more than 50 carriers.
The group's founding chairman, Gary Richards, is president of a California cargo company, Ameriflight Inc., that has had nine accidents since 2000, three of them fatal, killing four. Richards did not reply to interview requests.
`ONE LEVEL OF SAFETY'
Even as the FAA studies how to rewrite rules governing cargo and other small commercial carriers, ''One Level of Safety'' is not on the table.
''It's somewhat unreasonable for you to expect all small operators to operate at those same requirements,'' said Jim Ballough, director of the FAA's Flight Standards Service. ``That would, in essence, if not stop [then] severely hamper that segment of the cargo industry.''
Some in the industry argue that ultimately it is up to the FAA to make the skies safer.
''It all falls on the FAA. If they don't do it, it doesn't happen,'' said Richard Nensel, a former physician whose Ohio company, TOL Aviation, services cargo planes.
The best operators, he said, diligently replace parts and send pilots for regular training. ``It costs money, but you've got to do it.''
He expects carriers will put up a fight to major rule changes, which can come from two fronts -- the FAA, which can issue new safety regulations, or Congress, which can legislate reform.
Ros-Lehtinen and U.S. Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., incoming chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, have pressed for a ''vigorous'' inquiry that could lead to new laws, saying too many pilots were dying.
FATALITY RATES
Small cargo planes are part of a family of on-demand carriers that had a fatal accident rate 65 times greater than larger carriers in 2004 -- and was the highest since 1996.
In 2005, the small carriers had 2.02 total accidents per 100,000 U.S. flight hours, National Transportation Safety Board records show -- a rate 10 times higher than that of large carriers. The difference was more profound in fatal crashes: 23 times higher.
''Boxes don't complain,'' said Gary Reins, a pilot seriously injured in a 2001 cargo crash in South Dakota. ``It's all about money. . . . Make one set for everybody. That would make more sense. Now, the operators would fight that to their dying breath.''
The NTSB cited him for flying into icy weather, but went a step further and said ''company-induced pressure'' was a factor in his crash.
Reins had argued against flying to Sioux Falls in horrid weather on a Beech 65 with a broken heater.
''Somehow, I survived it, hanging upside down in the cockpit. Had I not regained consciousness, I would have been consumed by the fire,'' said Reins, 62, who shattered his ankle in 22 places and walks with a limp.
Now on disability living on a Minnesota farm, he calls cargo the most dangerous wing of commercial aviation. ``As soon as it gets dark, dark and dreary, there goes the flying junkyard.''
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