Grounded

As a retired FAA flight standards inspector, I read your
article about air-safety oversight ("Waiting to Happen")
with great interest. I find most of your report factual, and
while it identifies some of the problems with inspectors, it
overlooks the issue of the experience and technical
abilities of the average inspector.

In the early '90s the FAA started moving from a technically
experienced workforce to one based entirely on diversity,
political correctness, and union cronyism. It became
increasingly difficult to hire industry-experienced
personnel, especially on the air carrier side of the
workforce. The FAA and the union took the position that all
inspectors are equal and if not, a few weeks of training in
Oklahoma City would level the playing field. In an industry
as complex as American civil aviation, this attitude is as
wrongheaded as one could possibly be. It's absurd to believe
that a person with 10, 12, or even 20 years in the U.S. Air
Force working on fighter aircraft, or a similar time in the
Army maintaining helicopters or working for a state Highway
Patrol, is the equivalent of one who has been working for an
airline.

The FAA routinely hires people with little or no air carrier
civil experience and places them in positions of oversight
of air carriers. Without experience in the technical
regulatory requirements of air carrier programs, these
inspectors are not only ineffectual, they are dangerous.

The FAA senior management staff in Washington are fully
aware of what they have created but cannot or will not take
corrective measures until the tombstones start piling up.
It's only a matter of time.