Comments on: DOT Aviation Advisors Missing the Point

By: Dale Kettring

Dale Kettring — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:01:27 +0000

Please excuse me.

I meant to ask how the new instructions impact Mr. LaHood’s panel?

By: Dale Kettring

Dale Kettring — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:59:45 +0000

I note that Mr. LaHood’s advisory panel includes several “advisors” from industry, including airlines. That being the case, how does the new instructions to remove most industry “advisors” from those panels?

See the article at:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/26/AR2009112602362.html?hpid=topnews

By: Stephen R.

Stephen R. — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:10:45 +0000

Can you say Frank Lorenzo???

By: jeff

jeff — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:48:56 +0000

I remember way back when UAL bought the Westin or Western hotels.

My dad, a UAL employee asked, “what do they know about the hotel business?”

By: Stephen R.

Stephen R. — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:25:02 +0000

You may want to go back to the late seventies when Airline deregulation took place and view what happened there, it allowed the Corporate raiders to disassemble the entire industry that has yet to fully recover. I would venture to say that what has been already said here is that there are some who lack honor, integrity, and respect. Time to get wise, as they say!!

By: Bernard

Bernard — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:23:14 +0000

An excellent article that hits the nail right on the head. Huge difference between defining the problem and solving it however. Not only aviation of course but numerous other interest groups are being adversely affected by the cancer that is growing in our government. Unless these groups join in a concerted effort apathy will continue to allow the scoundrels to flourish.

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money. — Alexis de Tocqueville 1835

By: Stephen R.

Stephen R. — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:14:32 +0000

I have it somewhere and I’ll dig it up, it was in 1985

By: Robert Mark

Robert Mark — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:03:02 +0000

I had not heard of this story in BC&A before Stephen. Any idea when that might of run?

By: Bill

Bill — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:33:59 +0000

Amen, Scott.

By: Scott

Scott — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:00:13 +0000

Product liability is a symptom of a national avoidance of personal responsiblity. In all aspects of life, not just aviation, when something doesn’t go our way, or when it comes time to pay the consequences of something we’ve done, the solution is to not take responsibility for our decision but to blame it on someone else, and to get money for it, which ties right back into the insurance industry, which is where this conversation began.

By: Stephen Ruby

Stephen Ruby — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:57:36 +0000

You neglected to mention the sad but true Product Liability issue that plagued manufacturers in the mid-80′s and the lawyers who won absurd lawsuits with anything General Aviation.

Let’s look at for example,the wife who sued Beechcraft for $285 Million dollars in 1985…and won!! She claimed the manufacturer was at fault for her husbands death in a Beech Debonair that he flew into IMC without an instrument rating.

Then Russ Meyer of Cessna in the same time-frame claims product liability was the cause for Cessna to shut down all single engine assembly. Not true, that was the result of poorly manufactured fire-walls that Cessna somehow over looked and was the subject of an
article written in Business and Commercial Aviation.

The shut-down affected 80,000 airplanes from the 172 to the brand new Turbo Centurion. The advocate aviation attorney Arthur Alan Wolk certainly was behind GA, right??

The FAA should be a separate entity and not part of DOT, they neither have the fortitude or manpower to deal with all the bureaucratic madness that plagues our industry. When a new Beech Baron G58 goes out the door for something like $1.2 Million.

We need to look who is the benefactor for the survival of GA, and it is not the DOT.