International Aviation Safety Association

Media Watch

Reference:

Date:February 23, 1999

Organization:The Canadian Press

Title:Swissair widow pledges settlement to air safety

Word Count:677

GOLDENS BRIDGE, N.Y. (CP) - A woman whose husband was killed in last fall’s Swissair crash off Nova Scotia says she’ll donate any settlement from her lawsuit to advance aviation safety.

Lyn Romano says she wants to prevent more accidents like the one that killed her husband Ray, an account executive and father of three who died when Swissair Flight 111 plummeted into the Atlantic near Peggy’s Cove.

"They’re going to try to pay me off for my husband’s life," Romano said Monday during the first-ever meeting of an international aviation safety group she formed.

"It’s blood money; I can’t touch it.”

"The beauty is that with what they give me I get to go after them and everybody else to do what they should have done in the first place."

The small group of aviation experts and safety advocates hope to alter the course of commercial aviation and the practices of its top regulator, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.

But changing policies and practices established over 80 years won’t be easy, say participants in Monday’s session, held at Romano’s rural home about 50 minutes north of Manhattan.

Romano, who is scheduled to meet crash investigators in Halifax Tuesday, is suing Swissair, its maintenance company SR Technics and Boeing for a total $175 million on a variety of counts, including negligence, breach of warranty and punitive damages.

The determined woman, who was always terrified of flying and begged her husband not to take the Sept. 2 flight to Geneva, says she’ll pressure the industry until she’s satisfied safety is ahead of profits.

It is a daunting task.

"We’re up against a very deep-rooted problem that goes back probably decades," said John King of Tewksbury, Mass., an FAA-licensed mechanic and safety advocate. "There are others who have tried to blow the whistle on these safety issues and have been very unsuccessful."

The problem?

The system just doesn’t work, say group members, including Edward Block, a Pennsylvania-based consultant and member of several FAA wiring committees.
It’s an incestuous industry where overseers do not represent the best interests of the people who pay their salaries, said Block.

"The interests of the flying public have no representation. Everybody’s represented except the passengers."

Added King: "It’s almost like a club. In the industry, everybody knows everybody. You can move from the regulator to the regulated and nobody seems interested in anything that costs money."

The as-yet unnamed group met all day, exchanging stories, strategies, ideas and advice. Topics ranged from post-crash procedures to the FAA’s need for an office of wire and cable technology.

One participant even ignited a piece of Kapton-insulated wire, similar to wiring in the plane, to demonstrate its flammability.

"The industry is out there making choices and we have to live or die with those choices," said Block. "They’re based more on personality and politics than technical merit."

Block has campaigned for stricter controls on wiring selection since he was a military wiring specialist in the 1970s. He likened control of aircraft electronics to a food-and-drug regulator turning a blind eye to new drugs.

Other concerns raised at Monday’s meeting:

  • Ineffectiveness of FAA testing procedures and safety orders to airlines.
  • The need for a third man in the cockpit. Pilots say two is enough until something goes wrong, then they can easily be overwhelmed by events.
  • The need for better smoke-protection systems. Pilots can be blinded and overcome by toxic chemicals with existing oxygen masks. Swissair was to buy a new system in 1993 but thought it was too expensive.
  • Cockpit checklists consume valuable time during emergencies, can cause engine flame-outs and ignore the dangers of repowering damaged wires.

On Friday, the FAA announced that because of a $250-million budget shortfall it would not hire more inspectors specializing in aircraft wiring.

For Romano, it’s just more of the same.

"My husband’s not here because the FAA didn’t do their job, Swissair didn’t do their job, a whole bunch of people didn’t do their jobs," she said. "And they’re still make-believing they’re doing their jobs."