NASA to Release "SECRET" Survey

Would it have been possible for Congress to have caused this data to
be made public if NASA had been privatized and the study conducted by
the private corporation contracted to fulfill NASA's role?


Top News: NASA to Release Survey

NASA WILL RELEASE "SECRET" PILOT SAFETY SURVEY
(http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archive...ll.html#196491)
After being inundated with criticism from all sides after a NASA
official refused to release safety data to an Associated Press
reporter who requested it, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin told
a congressional panel on Wednesday that the information will be
made public after all (PDF

(http://democrats.science.house.gov/M...estimony.pdf)).
"I regret any impression that NASA was or would in any way try to
put commercial interests ahead of public safety," NASA's
administrator, Michael Griffin, told the House Science Committee

(http://www.science.house.gov/publica...x?NewsID=2022).
"That was not and never will be the case." The official who denied
the reporter's request had said the information might scare people
away from flying and hurt the industry. Griffin said that under
federal law, "NASA is required to protect confidential commercial
information that is voluntarily provided to the agency and would
not customarily be released to the public." But, he said, all of
the data from the safety survey that does not contain confidential
commercial information, or information that could compromise the
anonymity of individual pilots, will be released as soon as
possible.
http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archive...ll.html#196491


http://www.science.house.gov/press/P...px?NewsID=2011
By this letter, we are directing NASA to halt any destruction of
records relating to the NAOMS project, whether in the possession
of the agency or its contractors, and as defined in the attached
Appendix. Destruction of documents requested as part of a
Congressional inquiry is a violation of criminal federal law. 18
U.S.C. 1505 ... .

As I am sure you know, this is not the first time this year that
we have written regarding a report that NASA was involved in the
destruction of materials. In that prior instance, your own General
Counsel destroyed video records of your appearance before the
staff of the Inspector General. The evidence of misconduct was so
clear that the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Investigations
and Oversight Subcommittee sent a bipartisan referral letter to
the Department of Justice seeking the prosecution of your General
Counsel. ...




http://www.science.house.gov/press/P...px?NewsID=2031
Press Releases :: October 31, 2007

Committee Members to NASA: Public Has a Right to See U.S. Air
Safety Survey Data

The survey, conducted over more than six years at a cost of more
than $11 million taxpayer dollars, was expected to be the
forward-looking tool the U.S. would use to identify emerging
aviation safety problems. Instead, NASA stopped the NAOMS project
– despite the fact that it had enjoyed unusual success in
gathering responses from pilots – and has done nothing since to
provide the flying public with the insights gained from the
survey....

“NASA has a very important responsibility to protect public safety
and to be held accountable for taxpayer funds – neither of these
obligations has been met in NASA’s handling of the aviation study.
The safety of the public has to be our first priority, especially
with more and more Americans flying every year. Although
Administrator Griffin delivered the data to the committee, I call
on him to make the entire study public as soon as possible so
airlines can take the proper precautions to protect their
passengers,” said Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee Chairman Mark
Udall (D-CO). ...

The U.S. aviation system is changing due to new information and
communications technologies that are being introduced into the
system. It anticipated that air travel demand will increase by as
much as a factor of three by 2025 – equating to 2.3 billion air
travelers. The voluntary safety reporting systems of the past may
no longer be sufficient to deal with all of the changes projected
for the nation’s air transportation system– and NAOMS was designed
to be a new, comprehensive safety measurement and analysis tool
that would help ensure that the national airspace remains safe in
the coming years. ...




Hasn't ASRS data been historically made publicly available?


http://democrats.science.house.gov/M..._testimony.pdf
STATEMENT OF CAPTAIN TERRY MCVENES EXECUTIVE AIR SAFETY CHAIRMAN
AIR LINE PILOTS ASSOCIATION, INTERNATIONAL BEFORE THE U.S. HOUSE
OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
...
NASA, especially through the Aviation Safety Reporting System
(ASRS) program, has always been an important player in aviation
safety. Its human factors research, in particular, has provided
great value to our industry. The National Aviation Operational
Monitoring Service (NAOMS) survey was part of the early effort to
provide more information to help all of us improve aviation
safety. This first survey was a test of the process and
methodology. We understand that the data extracted from this
survey were summarized and those summaries were shared with the
government and industry. As in any first test, the data didn’t
correlate very well with data from other sources, possibly due to
the mix of general aviation and airline operations. The aviation
community had plans to further analyze those discrepancies and
determine if the data were reliable, but funding for NAOMS ran
out. That is when ALPA stepped in to help keep the project alive
as a part of our involvement with the Commercial Aviation Safety
Team (CAST). While we have been working with CAST to modify the
survey, we did not receive any of the collected data from NASA.
...



http://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/search/database.html
ASRS Online Database
Access to the ASRS database is now available! The ASRS Database
query search retrieves records by searching on many fields,
including location, aircraft and operation type, and anomaly.
Researchers, pilots, controllers, dispatchers, cabin crew, ASAP
managers, government agencies, and others are encouraged to access
specific data from the world's leading repository of aviation
safety information.

Larry Dighera wrote:
Would it have been possible for Congress to have caused this data to
be made public if NASA had been privatized and the study conducted by
the private corporation contracted to fulfill NASA's role?


Yes

On Thu, 1 Nov 2007 11:46:22 -0500, "Gig 601XL Builder"
wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net wrote in
:

Larry Dighera wrote:
Would it have been possible for Congress to have caused this data to
be made public if NASA had been privatized and the study conducted by
the private corporation contracted to fulfill NASA's role?


Yes


In the above scenario, would the information have been accessible
under the FOIA?

Larry Dighera wrote:
On Thu, 1 Nov 2007 11:46:22 -0500, "Gig 601XL Builder"
wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net wrote in
:

Larry Dighera wrote:
Would it have been possible for Congress to have caused this data to
be made public if NASA had been privatized and the study conducted
by the private corporation contracted to fulfill NASA's role?


Yes


In the above scenario, would the information have been accessible
under the FOIA?

Yes, if the government contracted a private organization to conduct a study
it would be FOIAble. The exceptions to this would be the same as they are
for a government agency.

On Thu, 1 Nov 2007 15:14:32 -0600, "Neil Gould"
wrote in
:


The spokesman said that the information was gathered with the
understanding that the anonymity of the participants would be protected,
and that as it stands, the comments could be traced back to the sources
(could that be why NASA wanted the data destroyed?).

So... if you were a participant in the survey who had an unreported
incident of significance, how would you feel about this data being
"outed"?

It doesn't appear that that is going to occur:

Griffin said that under
federal law, "NASA is required to protect confidential commercial
information that is voluntarily provided to the agency and would
not customarily be released to the public." But, he said, all of
the data from the safety survey that does not contain confidential
commercial information, or information that could compromise the
anonymity of individual pilots, will be released as soon as
possible.
http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archive...ll.html#196491

Recently, Larry Dighera posted:

Would it have been possible for Congress to have caused this data to
be made public if NASA had been privatized and the study conducted by
the private corporation contracted to fulfill NASA's role?

It seems that the opinions expressed here support the idea that the report
should be released in its entirety. However, I heard a comment from a NASA
spokesman on the yesterday's evening news that adds a dimension that I
haven't seen discussed, and I wonder if the folks here would feel
differently in light of this new information.

The spokesman said that the information was gathered with the
understanding that the anonymity of the participants would be protected,
and that as it stands, the comments could be traced back to the sources
(could that be why NASA wanted the data destroyed?).

So... if you were a participant in the survey who had an unreported
incident of significance, how would you feel about this data being
"outed"?

Neil

Neil Gould wrote:
Recently, Larry Dighera posted:

Would it have been possible for Congress to have caused this data to
be made public if NASA had been privatized and the study conducted by
the private corporation contracted to fulfill NASA's role?

It seems that the opinions expressed here support the idea that the
report should be released in its entirety. However, I heard a comment
from a NASA spokesman on the yesterday's evening news that adds a
dimension that I haven't seen discussed, and I wonder if the folks
here would feel differently in light of this new information.

The spokesman said that the information was gathered with the
understanding that the anonymity of the participants would be
protected, and that as it stands, the comments could be traced back
to the sources (could that be why NASA wanted the data destroyed?).

So... if you were a participant in the survey who had an unreported
incident of significance, how would you feel about this data being
"outed"?

Neil

Simple, I would never give the information when they asked in the future and
I would probabably sue if I were damaged.

The story about this on NPR said that NASA was going to go over the data to
make sure that nothing would be released that could be traced back.

Even if they do that well and no one is outed this whole thing will have a
negative effect on future, similar studies. So the net result of this will
probably be less safety and the general population won't have learned a
single thing of any use to them.

In the 2007 Federal Employee Attitude and Morale survey
NASA(National Aeronautics and Space Administration) was
rated 4th out of 222 Government agencies

NASA got an A

The FAA(Federal Aviation Administration) was rated 204 out
of 222

The FAA got an F-minus

I feel more comfortable with NASA dealing with Air Safety
than the FAA. It appears according to the survey data the
FAA can't find it's butt with both hands.

http://bestplacestowork.org/BPTW/rankings/

Larry Dighera wrote:
Would it have been possible for Congress to have caused this data to
be made public if NASA had been privatized and the study conducted by
the private corporation contracted to fulfill NASA's role?

Yes. But future "studies" will probably be a lot less meaningful now.
You can bet the farm that many airline pilots will think twice about
providing any information if it is releasable, even with the obvious
personal info deleted. Look at how fast it was determined, for example,
that Frontier Airlines was the only airline flying red-eye flights
Denver to Baltimore on A319s.

INSPECTOR GENERAL PROBES NASA STUDY
(http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archive...ll.html#196545)
The Office of Inspector General began looking into the saga of
NASA's National Aviation Operations Monitoring Service (NAOMS) a
week after NASA Chairman Michael Griffin said the data from the
survey would be released publicly. Griffin was on the hot seat
last week after The Associated Press ran a story in which a NASA
official said it withheld results of the survey, which polled
29,000 pilots on their experiences in the air, because it didn't
want to alarm the public or affect airline revenues. The OIG will
look at the efficiency and taxpayer value of the survey, something
which Griffin also called into question during the hearings,
according to New Scientist magazine





http://technology.newscientist.com/c...ty-survey.html
NASA blows millions on flawed airline safety survey
10 November 2007

HAS NASA wasted $11.3 million on a flawed survey of airline
safety? It looks likely.

The agency commissioned a telephone pollster to ask 29,000 pilots
about their near misses, runway collisions and technical problems.
At first, the poll seemed to show that these events had previously
been alarmingly under-reported. Engine failures, for instance,
were cited in NASA's survey at four times the rate recorded in the
Federal Aviation Administration's incident records.

The problem is that NASA appears to have counted some incidents
more than once. Pilots were given anonymity, so NASA can't tell
when several reports of an incident refer to the same event.
Explaining the gaffe to the House Committee on Science and
Technology on 31 October, NASA chief Mike Griffin admitted the
figures were "simply not credible".

"NASA can't tell when several reports refer to the same
event"Despite this, NASA is being compelled to release the raw
data under freedom of information legislation - and will do so
next month when references that might identify contributing pilots
have been removed, Griffin says.

"They should have thought through the fact that pilots and
copilots, for instance, might be reporting the same incidents,"
says Sheila Bird of the UK's Royal Statistical Society.

NASA claims it commissioned the survey merely to find out if phone
polling could improve flight-safety assessment.




On Thu, 01 Nov 2007 16:32:49 GMT, Larry Dighera
wrote in :

Would it have been possible for Congress to have caused this data to
be made public if NASA had been privatized and the study conducted by
the private corporation contracted to fulfill NASA's role?


Top News: NASA to Release Survey

NASA WILL RELEASE "SECRET" PILOT SAFETY SURVEY
(http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archive...ll.html#196491)
After being inundated with criticism from all sides after a NASA
official refused to release safety data to an Associated Press
reporter who requested it, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin told
a congressional panel on Wednesday that the information will be
made public after all (PDF

(http://democrats.science.house.gov/M...estimony.pdf)).
"I regret any impression that NASA was or would in any way try to
put commercial interests ahead of public safety," NASA's
administrator, Michael Griffin, told the House Science Committee

(http://www.science.house.gov/publica...x?NewsID=2022).
"That was not and never will be the case." The official who denied
the reporter's request had said the information might scare people
away from flying and hurt the industry. Griffin said that under
federal law, "NASA is required to protect confidential commercial
information that is voluntarily provided to the agency and would
not customarily be released to the public." But, he said, all of
the data from the safety survey that does not contain confidential
commercial information, or information that could compromise the
anonymity of individual pilots, will be released as soon as
possible.
http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archive...ll.html#196491


http://www.science.house.gov/press/P...px?NewsID=2011
By this letter, we are directing NASA to halt any destruction of
records relating to the NAOMS project, whether in the possession
of the agency or its contractors, and as defined in the attached
Appendix. Destruction of documents requested as part of a
Congressional inquiry is a violation of criminal federal law. 18
U.S.C. 1505 ... .

As I am sure you know, this is not the first time this year that
we have written regarding a report that NASA was involved in the
destruction of materials. In that prior instance, your own General
Counsel destroyed video records of your appearance before the
staff of the Inspector General. The evidence of misconduct was so
clear that the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Investigations
and Oversight Subcommittee sent a bipartisan referral letter to
the Department of Justice seeking the prosecution of your General
Counsel. ...




http://www.science.house.gov/press/P...px?NewsID=2031
Press Releases :: October 31, 2007

Committee Members to NASA: Public Has a Right to See U.S. Air
Safety Survey Data

The survey, conducted over more than six years at a cost of more
than $11 million taxpayer dollars, was expected to be the
forward-looking tool the U.S. would use to identify emerging
aviation safety problems. Instead, NASA stopped the NAOMS project
– despite the fact that it had enjoyed unusual success in
gathering responses from pilots – and has done nothing since to
provide the flying public with the insights gained from the
survey....

“NASA has a very important responsibility to protect public safety
and to be held accountable for taxpayer funds – neither of these
obligations has been met in NASA’s handling of the aviation study.
The safety of the public has to be our first priority, especially
with more and more Americans flying every year. Although
Administrator Griffin delivered the data to the committee, I call
on him to make the entire study public as soon as possible so
airlines can take the proper precautions to protect their
passengers,” said Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee Chairman Mark
Udall (D-CO). ...

The U.S. aviation system is changing due to new information and
communications technologies that are being introduced into the
system. It anticipated that air travel demand will increase by as
much as a factor of three by 2025 – equating to 2.3 billion air
travelers. The voluntary safety reporting systems of the past may
no longer be sufficient to deal with all of the changes projected
for the nation’s air transportation system– and NAOMS was designed
to be a new, comprehensive safety measurement and analysis tool
that would help ensure that the national airspace remains safe in
the coming years. ...




Hasn't ASRS data been historically made publicly available?


http://democrats.science.house.gov/M..._testimony.pdf
STATEMENT OF CAPTAIN TERRY MCVENES EXECUTIVE AIR SAFETY CHAIRMAN
AIR LINE PILOTS ASSOCIATION, INTERNATIONAL BEFORE THE U.S. HOUSE
OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
...
NASA, especially through the Aviation Safety Reporting System
(ASRS) program, has always been an important player in aviation
safety. Its human factors research, in particular, has provided
great value to our industry. The National Aviation Operational
Monitoring Service (NAOMS) survey was part of the early effort to
provide more information to help all of us improve aviation
safety. This first survey was a test of the process and
methodology. We understand that the data extracted from this
survey were summarized and those summaries were shared with the
government and industry. As in any first test, the data didn’t
correlate very well with data from other sources, possibly due to
the mix of general aviation and airline operations. The aviation
community had plans to further analyze those discrepancies and
determine if the data were reliable, but funding for NAOMS ran
out. That is when ALPA stepped in to help keep the project alive
as a part of our involvement with the Commercial Aviation Safety
Team (CAST). While we have been working with CAST to modify the
survey, we did not receive any of the collected data from NASA.
...



http://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/search/database.html
ASRS Online Database
Access to the ASRS database is now available! The ASRS Database
query search retrieves records by searching on many fields,
including location, aircraft and operation type, and anomaly.
Researchers, pilots, controllers, dispatchers, cabin crew, ASAP
managers, government agencies, and others are encouraged to access
specific data from the world's leading repository of aviation
safety information.