The Public Perception of Safety
Mike Borfitz (mike.b@faaoda.com)
NOTE: This article was written a few years ago. Some details reflect the time it was written, but the message and concepts remain unchanged.
"I mean, are you going to watch ‘Friends’ or a jumbo jet crash?" - Michael Darnell, Fox Network Executive Vice President
"The FAA has no plans to crash a jumbo jet during the November sweeps" – Drucie Anderson, FAA public relations
The above quotes are from the front page of the August 28, 1999 Seattle Times article,"Fox Wants to Show Inside of 747 Crash." These words perfectly portray the public fascination with aviation accidents and the willingness of some people in the media to pander to that fascination. The Fox Network was said to have been considering intentionally crashing a Boeing 747 for live public broadcast. The purpose was allegedly to test the crashworthiness of a popular airplane. There is no doubt that such an event would have had a huge audience share and herds of "aviation experts" would have come out of the woodwork to get their 15 minutes of fame. What an event, a spectacular, flaming jumbo jet crash right before our eyes, but without the guilt. This is better than "Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire?".
Accidents that actually happen are aggressively tracked by the media and public after the fact, but the accidents that are prevented are ignored simply because safe air travel is part of our daily lives, like tap water.
In "Bonfires to Beacons", the FAA authorized book about the birth of the FAA, the word perception as it relates to safety is found in the very early pages. To paraphrase, aviation in the years immediately following World War I was seen by the public as an inherently dangerous endeavor. A great many people were first introduced directly to aviation by barnstormers who flew from town to town in rickety war surplus airplanes which were literally held together with baling wire and glue. The mere act of flying could truly be death defying.
Some enterprising people saw the business potential in a mode of transportation that was faster than anything else currently in existence, which needed neither roads nor steel tracks, and whose departure and destination locations could simply be two open fields. Airplanes had the ability to generate their own advertisement by merely flying overhead, because all eyes turned upward when an airplane came by. Men and women could actually fly through the air like birds. Imagine that? The problem faced by these enterprising individuals was that fiery airplane accidents always seemed to make the front page, the horror amplified by the “magic” of flight. Maybe we’re not really meant to fly, are we? These businessmen decided to ask the Federal Government to regulate aviation. They felt if the government could provide the necessary structure for aircraft design, production, operation and navigation, aviation might actually have a future. "Bonfires to Beacons" tells that story very well. In 1921 Herbert Hoover wrote “It is interesting to note that this is the only industry that favors having itself regulated by Government.” (Bonfires to Beacons, by Nick Komons, Page 22)
This is a very important point: The regulatory system that we all work within today, originated because American business asked for it and the federal government agreed to help.
The role of the media
The media provides a valuable service to a primary customer who is willing to pay a handsome fee. They provide an open and receptive audience to their customers, the advertisers, in return for grabbing and holding the public attention as long as possible. Television is the very best at achieving that goal, but the popular online and print media are no slouches either. Fifty cents for a daily newspaper comes nowhere near being able to pay for writing, editing, printing and distributing their product. Advertisers pay for the popular media, not the audience, which further explains why television is "free". As you watch your favorite program, try to actively consider your mind to be a product delivered to the advertisers, and your perspective will change over time. Watch how easily you and your fellow “product” stay tuned through commercials after seeing a horrid crash scene and hearing "Four dead in a fiery crash today. We’ll be right back". I have rarely heard a nightly television news broadcast in which the word "deadly" hasn’t been used at least once. This means their primary goal is to GET OUR ATTENTION, any informational or educational service provided to us may or may not be intentional, but it is certainly a secondary function. Death and destruction may not be fun, but is a form of macabre entertainment that we as humans just can’t seem to turn away from, and the media take serious advantage of our nature. This is especially true with aviation. Most of us have at least one significant airplane accident imprinted in our memories. Test yourself - what aviation accident is most memorable to you? Why? If you have a fear of flying, have the media helped you overcome that fear?
To augment the argument, on February 24, 2003, as I was reading the New York Times, a newspaper that I have great faith in, I encountered an article that was introduced with the following lead: "CNN executives are reluctantly accepting the channel's ranking beneath Fox News and are focusing on how to attract more affluent viewers who attract premium advertisers". The story itself exposes that notion in much greater detail, you won't even have to read between the lines. The story describes Jim Walton's efforts to become more competitive with Fox News shortly after he became president of CNN. One particularly telling portion of the story describes the notion that a more affluent audience generates greater revenue for the broadcaster:
"His strategy includes focusing on a 'high-quality' audience of affluent people. It is an audience that Fox also says it attracts. But Mr. Walton has argued that CNN is in a different business, one that is heavier in news compared with its rivals at Fox and even the third-place MSNBC. Fox News Channel may draw larger ratings than CNN, but not higher ad rates, the theory goes. CNN is estimated to draw 15 to 40 percent higher rates than Fox News, though both sides agree that the gap is closing fast".
The FAA is in a very difficult position because of the popular media and the news philosophy “If it bleeds it leads.” The media have the power to drive the FAA to take actions that may not directly benefit safety but are very reactive to accidents, then they turn around and accuse the FAA of tombstone engineering for behaving in that very fashion. It is not unusual for FAA employees who are working on programs that have strategic safety benefits to be reassigned to emergent, but technically questionable, activities that are driven by the press. Take, for example, the FAA inspectors who were shown on television, visibly kicking airplane tires after the 1996 ValueJet accident in the Florida Everglades*. The intent was to reassure the public that the FAA was out there protecting them, but it was likely that those inspectors were taken away from higher level fleet management duties, and the value of inspecting individual airplanes is very low for the small number of FAA inspectors available. The FAA had no choice but to deploy those individuals because they were forced to deal with the perception that they were failing to be "out there" watching the airlines and inspecting airplanes for the flying public.
This FAA behavior is appropriate and necessary, by the way. The technical reality of aviation safety is the FAA's first priority, of course, but the FAA also must assure the public that aviation is indeed as safe as it truly is, and the public perception is a critical psychological component of providing that assurance.
Now, here is a test that we present to people when we're talking about aviation safety. It forces people at the personal level to develop a better understanding of what safety really means to them as individuals: How many people do you know who have been in serious automobile accidents? Ask yourself the same question about airplane accidents. Remember the Boeing Max accidents and TWA Flight 800** (230 killed on July 17,1996)? In the same time frame as Flight 800 there was an accident on November 12, 1996, a midair accident involving a Boeing 747 that killed 349 people, more than the previous two combined. Do you remember that? Where did it occur?
Please consider the fact that aviation today is the safest and most efficient means of mass transportation in human history. We can travel faster, farther and more safely in large airplanes than in any mode of transportation that has ever been devised. Isn't it odd that we can travel all day by automobile without thinking twice but get nervous whenever we walk down the airport ramp to fly somewhere? Incredible.
By the way, the answer to the second question above is - New Delhi, India - Shortly after takeoff, a Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747, Saudia Flight 763, was involved in a midair collision with a Kazak Airlines Ilyushin 76, Flight 1907, which was approaching the New Delhi airport. Both airplanes were destroyed and all 349 passengers and crew were killed. It was the world's worst midair collision***. The point is, it’s not the least bit unusual to see it in the news with a line like “No Americans were killed in that accident.”, then it just winks out.
We don't remember the New Delhi accident because it didn't happen here. It was on Page 8 of the Boston Globe the day after the accident and was never mentioned again. It didn't . . . . happen . . . . here. Another example is provided when there is an accident outside the United States.
*https://www.faa.gov/lessons_learned/transport_airplane/accidents/N904VJ
** https://www.faa.gov/lessons_learned/transport_airplane/accidents/N93119
*** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Charkhi_Dadri_mid-air_collision