Term Paper on "Ethical or Social Responsibility"

Term Paper 8 pages (2554 words) Sources: 6 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Social Responsibility

Airplane Industry Ethics

Conflicts of interest when investigation airplane crashes

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) plane crash, "whether a large commercial airliner or a tiny home-built ultra light sets into motion a flurry of events" and always inevitably cumulates with a National Transportation Safety Board investigation (Hise 1991:1). "The men and women of the NTSB have a rare breed of government job," in that they are nonpartisan, non-official law enforcement authorities given the investigational power to find the cause, "often beginning with little more than a handful of crushed aluminum, of almost every aviation crash they investigate" and issue a report on airplane crashes (Hise 1999:1). These men and women are supposed to be noble fact-finders, neither interested in the airline industry's financial future, the bottom line of corporate America, or even the feelings of the families and the victims of the crash.

This is why the NTSB is officially unaffiliated with the current executive administration, whether that administration is Democratic or Republican. The NTSB is supposed to be beholden only to the truth, not even the interests of the government. This is why it is not affiliated with the Justice Department. "The Safety Board does not investigate criminal activity; in the past, once it has been established that a transportation tragedy is, in fact, a criminal act, the FBI becomes the lead federal investigative body, with the NTSB providing any requested support" ("Investigations Involving Criminal Activity" 2007, NTSB). For example, during the 9/11 investigations, the NTSB "studies provide the most detailed technical information available to date related to the hijackings, and the transcripts of the aircraft-to-ground communications" and were the "first complete government disclosure of each flight's air traffic control recordings" but were not affiliated with any prosecutorial procedures (Elias 2006).

Yet behind this idealism and the agency's noble credo comes the inevitable charges of bias. According to the British Economist John Kenneth Galbraith: "a government agency which starts with good intentions in [one] generation... is [soon] entirely composed of industry insiders" by the third incarnation of its leadership (Alverez 1999:2). The NTSB is supposed to be "a uniquely independent organization" according to its official charter (Hise 1999:1). The agency was originally affiliated with the Civil Aeronautics Board but that board "was smeared with a little conflict of interest since the agency [the CAB] also wrote aviation regulations. Conceivably, the people who write the rules won't have much incentive to question whether or not those rules are working in the wake of an accident" (Hise 1999:1). Hence the creation of the NTSB.

But since some spectacular and not-so spectacular airplane crashes and casualties in the 1990s, even before the current security concerns plaguing the airline industry, many families of the victims of airplane crashes have stated that the National Transportation Safety Board or (NTSB) is no longer capable of adequately monitoring the industries it is supposed to police. They state that recent crash investigations show that the NTSB is obviously 'in bed' with the corporations it is in charge of overseeing. This is obviously a concern given the seriousness of the issues pertaining to all the industries monitored by the NTSB, and to the safety of America as a whole.

The NTSB investigates "every single civil air crash, as well as major railway, marine, highway and pipeline accidents" (Hise 1991:1). But given the risks and often spectacularly public crashes of airplanes, allegations of bias are of more concern regarding air travel and they dog the agency more than any other industry it monitors. Also unlike the most of the other industries monitored by the NTSB, airplane corporations are private entities, responsible for making money and rehabilitating their image after a plan has crashed and most of the victims are civilians.

Critics allege that the agency "bends over backwards to keep a collegial atmosphere between it and the manufacturers, airlines and suppliers it relies on" for evidence after a crash, partly out of convenience and partly because it is easier though not necessary more accurate to maintain such a relationship (Alvarez 1999:2). This reliance often produces suspicious reports, or reports with glaring omissions. For example, take the crash of United Airlines Flight 585. In 1991, the plane crashed in Colorado Springs, Colorado, killing 25 people on board. The investigation received little media scrutiny other than that bestowed by the local press, because of the relatively low number of casualties.

However, the investigation conducted by the NTSB seemed suspiciously lax. For example, the NTSB narrowed the cause down to two factors: the wind or the rudder mechanism," and then, "a funny thing happened during the course of Boeing and United's examination of the plane's rudder system: Key parts disappeared -- for months" and the NTSB accepted United Airlines' contention that the rudder had been lost in the destruction (Alvarez 1999:1). Then the missing parts were later, mysteriously discovered later at a United Airlines warehouse in San Francisco, far away from the crash (Alvarez 1999:1).

According to the NTSB, this omission was "an honest mistake," not a cover-up by United Airlines (Alvarez 1999:2). Boeing and United Airlines said United Airlines had "discovered a 737 with rudder problems during a routine maintenance check" and didn't inform the NTSB until the airline conducted tests that the rudder was the rudder that had caused the earlier crash (Alvarez 1999:2). While NTSB publicly lambasted the manufacturer and the airline "for not being more forthcoming," the lack of public discipline towards both entities of this apparent cover-up or negligence, or both, calls into question the dependence of the NTSB on profit-making corporations like airlines and airplane manufactures as its main, often sole source of information

Bluntly put, "until the NTSB can figure out a way to decrease its reliance on companies with vested interests in the outcomes of investigations they help conduct, critics say it will never have the public's complete trust" entirely (Alvarez 1999:2). But at the time of the crash, the NTSB chairman said that "the system works well, has a long history of cooperation, and [the NTSB] creates a healthy tension among the parties, as it was designed to do...he pointed to Boeing's discovery, through its own testing, that there was indeed a flaw in the 737's rudder system, causing it to jam," stating that this proved that there was no cover-up, despite the initial tests conduced by the airlines (Alvarez 1999:2).

Boeing came forward and presented its findings to NTSB investigators and these fines resulted in a redesign of the offending part that cost well over $100 million" (Alvarez 1999:2). Critics would state that regardless, the manner of the airline was underhanded, gave it crucial time to carefully 'spin' the evidence, and regardless of its actions afterwards, there is no way to know if more potentially exculpatory evidence was covered up before the missing part was presented to the NTSB.

To place "faith in multi-national conglomerates to disclose damning findings without regard to the hundreds of millions of dollars in potential lawsuits" seems lazy and illogical at best, and immoral at worst (Alvarez 1999:2). At very least, an appearance of a conflict of interest seems likely on the part of the NTSB if it maintains too close a relationship with the airline industry. This is especially dangerous given the sensitive feelings of the victim's families and the potential for litigation if there is an indeed a preventable error. Also, as in the case of the rudder, if structural modification is required, if adequate steps are not taken to address the causes of the crash, more needless victim fatalities could result in the future.

One of the family members of a victim of the United Airlines crash said through his attorney: "Personally, I am happy to credit Boeing with a rare burst of honesty," when it returned the missing part, "but that begs the question. The public should not have to depend on the good faith of a defendant" to produce evidence against him or herself (Alvarez 1999:2). At present, good faith is not even required -- the chairman must ask for good faith from the industry, which might lose thousands of millions of dollars to the legal system, and public relations capital if they capitulate to the public's demands for evidence about the crash.

Instead, to produce a more "a balanced investigation" victims' families propose to "include experts hired by victims' family plaintiffs. Currently, NTSB's charter specifically prohibits victims' families or their representatives from being members of the investigation of a crash, for fear that their emotions would bias the result and because they cannot provide expert testimony. But "without a seat at the table, plaintiffs and their victim families feel the current system gives [potential] defendants a privileged position in future litigation" (Alvarez 1999:1). The industry states to allow for victim advocacy for a fact-finding agency would only encourage frivolous litigation and turn the investigational proceedings into a free evidence-gathering mission for plaintiffs" attorneys, rather than produce a fair and accurate portrait and judgment of what had occurred.

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