Mystery Grows: Why Is Bush Admin Suppressing Air Safety Survey?

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which has a mandate to enhance the safety of air travel, has been suppressing huge quantities of data that apparently show the risks for civilian aircraft are much higher than commonly estimated. The agency's lame excuses for refusing to release the information must make any traveler wonder how bad the implications might be.

Several years ago, NASA began interviewing airline and general aviation pilots about how often they saw risky incidents, like near collisions, or stressful last- second changes in landing instructions. Some 24,000 interviews were conducted over a four-year period before the program, and plans to interview air traffic controllers, flight attendants and mechanics, were scrapped.

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