A Dayton Daily News Editorial // May 15, 2002

Until the horrific crash in February 2000 of an Emery Worldwide Airlines plane, the Emery pilots’ complaints about their company's lax maintenance weren't being taken seriously. That should have been clear then, but it's obviously true in hindsight.

The pilots were negotiating their first contract with Emery, and their objections were, in some places, seen as typical bargaining machinations. Then Flight 17, bound for Dayton, crashed in California moments after takeoff. Three young crew members were killed in a fiery explosion. Investigators have raised questions about the airplane's maintenance.

The deaths and the realization that even a worse disaster easily could have occurred if the fuel-laden plane had crashed into a shopping mall or school gave credibility to the pilots' bitter and suddenly prophetic accusations.

Ultimately, Emery voluntarily grounded its planes, but under threats from the Federal Aviation Administration that it was about to revoke the airline's certificate.

Then soon after that grounding, Emery's parent, CNF Inc., closed down Emery Worldwide Airlines altogether. CNF is still in the air-cargo business, using airlines on contract.

But the California disaster did something else, too. The crash and the facts coming out of an investigation of it have put a spotlight on practices in the maintenance of airline cargo planes generally. Last week, members of the the National Transportation and Safety Board held a two-day public hearing into Emery's maintenance practices, its record-keeping and what went wrong with Flight 17. The panel didn't get all of its questions answered after two days, so the hearing will pick up again later.

At one point, an Emery representative said that if other airlines were put under the scrutiny Emery has endured, the public would see their "warts," too.

An NTSB member retorted that the more appropriate description was "cancer."

Clearly, NTSB members were not impressed with what they heard. Emery representatives were evasive and contradicted themselves. Beyond their frustration with the lack of answers they were getting, NTSB members had to be troubled about the big picture, not just Flight 17.

Hit-and-miss oversight of matters that have life-and- death implications is terrifying testimony. Missing bolts, poor inspection manuals, repeated maintenance mistakes — all these things should be enough to give a regulator sleepless nights.

The NTSB's main job is to rule on the likely cause of the crash of Flight 17. But it also can make recommendations to the FAA about rules for the airline industry, and it can publicly expose practices and patterns that it deems dangerous. The power of these hearings can't be minimized — provided, of course, the right questions are asked and the right answers are demanded.

Already the NTSB is stepping on touchy ground. Emery isn't under the microscope alone. So is the FAA. If Emery wasn't following FAA rules, if it was avoiding oversight, if FAA rules were lax or the agency was belated in discovering safety problems, the FAA looks bad, too.

That the FAA is feeling heat is clear. It took its toughest stands with Emery once it was clear that the NTSB was going to probe deeply and publicly into Flight 17's crash.

Although some question whether maintenance checks-and- balances for even passenger airlines are good enough, you get the impression that there is a double standard in play — one for cargo operations and another for airlines carrying dozens or hundreds of passengers. That's a frightening thought for crew members of cargo planes, but it's also a distinction that doesn't make sense.

The cargo planes, because they're so huge and because they carry large amounts of fuel, can, in a crash, kill any number of people on the ground. Flight 17, for instance, plowed through an auto auction yard that could have been crowded with customers.

The cargo-airline industry is ballooning. Everybody wants things moved now if not sooner. And it doesn't get any faster than planes when minutes are money. But the safety of pilots and the public whom cargo planes are flying over have to be paramount.

The NTSB can help make that happen by not letting up.