Y 4.568/2:104-61 AVIATION SAFETY: TREATMENT OF (104-61) 26-764CC HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON AVIATION OF THE COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED FOURTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION JUNE 19, 1996 Printed for the use of the U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON: 1997 For sale by the U.S. Government Printing Office SITORY Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office, Washington, DC 204020 2 1997 ISBN 0-16-054207-3 Universy Jonsson Library COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTUCTURE BUD SHUSTER, Pennsylvania, Chairman DON YOUNG, Alaska SHERWOOD L. BOEHLERT, New York WILLIAM H. ZELIFF, JR., New Hampshire Y. TIM HUTCHINSON, Arkansas JAY KIM, California STEPHEN HORN, California BOB FRANKS, New Jersey PETER I. BLUTE, Massachusetts STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio RAY LAHOOD, Illinois BILL MARTINI, New Jersey DAN FRISA, New York TODD TIAHRT, Kansas JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois GLENN POSHARD, Illinois BUD CRAMER, Alabama BARBARA-ROSE COLLINS, Michigan ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of Columbia JERROLD NADLER, New York PAT DANNER, Missouri ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey JAMES E. CLYBURN, South Carolina JAMES A. BARCIA, Michigan EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas JUANITA MILLENDER-MCDONALD, ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland CONTENTS .............. Cummock, M. Victoria, President, Families of Pan AM 103/Lockerbie Hall, Jim, Chairman, National Transportation Safety Board Huerta, Michael, Associate Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Transpor- tation, accompanied by Commander Ed Gleason, U.S. Coast Guard Kessler, Richard P., Jr., Husband of Kathleen Parker Kessler, a Passenger Smith, Douglas, President, National Air Disaster Alliance Warren, Robert, Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporation Secretary, Air Transport Association, accompanied by Jim Casey, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, Air Transport Association PREPARED STATEMENT SUBMITTED BY A MEMBER OF CONGRESS Hall, Jim, Chairman, National Transportation Safety Board: Summary of the NTSB/DOT Meeting with Families of Airline Crash Vic- Information for Relatives of Victims of Transportation Accidents, pamphlet. Kessler, Richard P., Jr., Husband of Kathleen Parker Kessler, a Passenger Transcript of the State Bar of Georgia's Board of Governors' Resolution for Kathleen Parker Kessler, and the Acceptance Address by her Hus- The American Association for Families of KAL 007 Victims, statement Jarvis, Charles and Margaret Jarvis, and Sharon Jarvis Moss, statement Laughlin, Louise, Vice President of People, ValuJet Airlines, statement O'Mara, Tom, Chairman, Aviation Consumer Action Project, letter, June 17, Page ADDITIONS TO THE RECORD Smith, M. Douglas, The Family Advocate: A Proposal of the Families of Airline Industry Responses to Issues Raised in National Air Disaster Alli- 177 236 244 Orion C. Pinkerton Funeral Home Inc., James O. Pinkerton, Vice President, letter to Deborah Thompson, Director, USAir Consumer Affairs, May 10, 1995 248 251 The Florida Bar, Arne C. Vanstrum, Assistant Ethics Counsel, Rules Regulating the Florida Bar Florida Bar v. Went For It, Inc., 115 S.Ct.2371 (1995) Crowell & Moring, Mark Behrens, Counsel, also represents the American Tort Reform Association, and the Product Liability Coordinating Committee: Hatch, Hon. Orrin G., a U.S. Senator from Utah, statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Hearing on Contingency Fee Abuses, November 7, 1995 HALT-An Organization of Americans for Legal Reform, summary of testimony, November 7, 1995 295 312 324 Brickman, Lester, November 7, 1995, testimony and appended statement Roth, Eric S., "Confronting Solicitation of Mass Disaster Victims", Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics, article, Vol. 2:943 327 .... 371 Restricting Lawyers' Solicitation of Victims', Scott R. Bickford and Paula 382 "Master of Disaster", Max Boot, The Wall Street Journal, January 4, 1996 392 393 Family Health Center, L.L.P., Antonio Falcon, M.D., letter to Sen. Orrin 394 "The ABA Has Fallen Down on the Job", Warren E. Burger, The Wall Street Journal, August 10, 1994 395 Clifford Law Offices, Robert A. Clifford, letter, June 21, 1996, and attachments 396 Letters from relatives and friends of victims of airline disasters (IV) AVIATION SAFETY: TREATMENT OF FAMILIES AFTER AIRLINE ACCIDENTS WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19, 1996 U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, Washington, DC. The_committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:34 a.m. in room 2167 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John J. Duncan, Jr. (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Mr. DUNCAN. I'd like to call the subcommittee hearing to order. I want to first of all welcome everyone here this morning, and particularly those who are going to testify. I want to thank especially the witnesses for taking time out of what I know are very busy schedules to come here and give your testimony and your views, and hopefully to present some solutions on not only the very important issue that we will face today, but also this is the first of a series of hearings arising, in part, out of the tragic crash by ValuJet, but also looking into many issues that this subcommittee has been concerned about and interested in for quite some time. Before I give my full opening statement, we are very fortunate in this committee to have a really outstanding chairman of our full committee, Chairman Shuster, and I would like to call on him for any opening statement or comments that he has at this time. Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to emphasize that, while this hearing is the first of many hearings in which we're going to focus on the issue of safety, and that while the ValuJet crash was what stimulated this hearing, this is certainly not going to be limited to the ValuJet issue. Indeed, we are going to focus in depth on the whole question of aviation safety in America. We're going to focus particularly on the FAA and the question of how capable the FAA is. Having said all that, I think it is very important to emphasize that airline travel in America is safe, safer than it's ever been. In fact, aviation travel in America is safer than anywhere else in the world. First of all, we have as many fatalities every 4 months on our highways as we have had in 80 years of commercial aviation travel. Beyond that, the statistics show that not only are we the safest in the world, but we are three times as safe as European commercial air travel. In the last several years, U.S. airlines have had 0.3 airline accidents per 1 million flights. European airlines have had 0.84 accidents per million flights, African airlines, 2.6, Asian airlines, 3.0. (1) |