U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaFrance ordered the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to make its entire bird strike database available to the public.
“Public disclosure is our job,” LaHood wrote on his official blog. “The sea change in government transparency is beginning, and we are happy to be a part of it.”
Portions of the database have been publicly available since the information was first collected in 1990, but the public is now able to access all of the database’s fields.
The Associated Press reported that airplane collisions with birds have more than doubled at 13 major U.S. airports since 2000, according to Federal Aviation Administration data released for the first time Friday.
Topping the list of airports where planes were either substantially damaged or destroyed by birds since 2000 were John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York with at least 30 such accidents and Sacramento International Airport in California with at least 28 such accidents.
It was the first disclosure of the entire FAA bird strike database, including the first-ever release of the locations of strikes, the AP noted.
The FAA list details more than 89,000 incidents since 1990, including 28 cases since 2000 when a collision with a bird or other animal such as a deer on a runway was so severe that the aircraft was considered destroyed.
The FAA withdrew its proposal to suppress the data “after determining that it can release the data without jeopardizing aviation safety.” However, the U.S. aviation agency redacted a very small amount of data in the database containing privacy information, such as personal phone numbers.
The National Transportation Safety Board had “strongly disagreed” with the FAA’s plan. NTSB Acting Chairman Mark Rosenker said in a letter to the FAA that withholding the data could hinder the ability of independent researchers to compare the level of bird strikes by individual airports and airlines. Such comparisons are “valid” and might aid safety efforts, the letter said. “The safety board believes that public access to all the data in the FAA Wildlife Strike Database is critical to the analysis and mitigation of the wildlife strike problem, and the board strongly disagrees with the FAA’s proposal to restrict public access to these data,” the letter added.
Rosenker praised LaHood for his decision to publicly open up the FAA database on aircraft bird strikes.
“I fully support the decision of Secretary LaHood to release this data to everyone. The more information is known about the extent of this problem, the better able regulators and others will be to combat a phenomenon that brought down an airliner and possibly a transport-category helicopter earlier this year. I was particularly gratified to read the Secretary’s comments in the news media suggesting he would support making these reports mandatory,” Rosnker said. (In 1999, the NTSB recommended that the FAA require all airplane operators to report bird strikes; reporting is currently on a voluntary basis.)
The FAA had announced its intention to block public access to its records of bird strikes, saying release of such data might mislead the public and prompt airport to stop reporting bird strike incidents.
The FAA releases annual summaries of wildlife collisions with aircraft. There were 7,439 wildlife strikes in 2007, mostly involving birds, up from 5,872 in 2000. But the FAA quietly proposed to shield from public scrutiny its extensive record of bird collisions dating back to 1990 after receiving a media request for the additional bird strike data.
The FAA said that the wildlife collision data should receive the same protections as other voluntary aviation reporting systems designed to promote safety. If the data is released, some airports may hesitate to make reports, said an FAA spokeswoman. It was also feared that the data could “produce an inaccurate perception” of the risks.
The FAA said it was worried the public would compare the data on various airports. “Drawing comparisons between airports is difficult because of the unevenness of reporting,” it said. “Inaccurate portrayals of airports and airlines could have a negative impact on their participation in reporting bird strikes,” FAA added.
The FAA’s action was reminiscent of NASA efforts in late 2007 to withhold air safety data from The Associated Press, claiming that revealing the information could damage the public’s confidence in airlines and affect airline profitability. NASA released some of the data months later under pressure from Congress.
Over the next four months, the FAA will make significant improvements to the database to improve the search function and make it more user-friendly. In its current format, users will only be able to perform limited searches online, but will be able to download the entire database.
The FAA also plans to work with the aviation community to find ways to improve and strengthen bird strike reporting. The database can be accessed through: http://wildlife – mitigation.tc.faa.gov/public_html/temp.html#access
Meanwhile, the NTSB is holding a public hearing in June into the January ditching of US Airways Flight 1549. The threat of bird strikes to aviation safety is one of the issues that will be explored at that hearing.