FLYING INTO TROUBLE

(5 of 16)

Atlanta-based ValuJet was a phenomenal success story. In just three years, it had leaped from two planes on eight routes between Atlanta and Jacksonville, Orlando and Tampa, Florida, to 51 planes with 320 itineraries. Founded in 1993, the discount carrier saw revenue soar to $368 million in 1995.

But it became apparent [to the Inspector General's office] that closer scrutiny of this phenomenon was long overdue. There were plenty of signs that ValuJet was cursed by its own success, its growth straining its management and organizational structure.

In 1995, when ValuJet bid for a contract to ferry Defense Department personnel, Defense specialists had scrutinized ValuJet's books, inspected its facilities and talked to its pilots, mechanics and managers. The Defense Department had complaints about virtually everything, and its report was breathtaking in the scope of its condemnation. The answer: No contract. ValuJet is not good enough to fly our people.

If the FAA had properly regulated ValuJet, its rapid growth might not have led to disaster. But that February in 1996, all that seemed clear to me was that the FAA simply did not know what to do with ValuJet. The airline's safety record had deteriorated almost in direct proportion to its growth. ValuJet pilots made 15 emergency landings in 1994 and were forced down 57 times in 1995. (I didn't know it yet, but that record would be surpassed within months with 59 emergency landings in the first part of 1996. From February through May that year, ValuJet would have an unscheduled landing almost every other day.)

As I probed, I learned that FAA inspectors had looked at ValuJet planes nearly 5,000 times in the three years it had been flying yet had never reported any significant problems or concerns. What are the odds of that?

Schiavo told her staff that their office had to do something about the FAA's oversight of ValuJet.

"Let's get someone down to Atlanta to find out what's going on with ValuJet," I said, not feeling wise or clairvoyant, just afraid. "There's something wrong, and we've got to find out before someone dies."

The next day deputy assistant inspector general Larry Weintrob and two other officials from my office walked into the Atlanta office of the FAA. There was only one major question: What is the FAA doing about ValuJet? Weintrob pressed for details about the recent spate of accidents. The reply stunned him. Confused, the FAA inspectors asked, What spate? The inspectors admitted they didn't know how many accidents there had been. Taken aback, Weintrob and his team laid out details: In its short life, Valujet had had more than its share of accidents and mishaps. Its planes repeatedly overshot runways and suffered from collapsed landing gears. Planes took off in weather that kept pilots of other airlines on the ground. Fires broke out on planes. Engines exploded. In one blast, the engine spewed shrapnel into the fuselage of a plane, piercing the metal and injuring seven people inside.