At a recent Aviation Subcommittee hearing into the controversial certification of the Eclipse EA-500 Very Light Jet (VLJ), the chairman, Rep. Jerry Costello (D-IL), led off with this hypothetical, “For the past few years, I have asked the question – does the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have adequate resources to accomplish its mission?” It may be more pertinent to ask, for whom does the FAA believe it works? For pilots and the traveling public, or the airlines and the manufacturers?

The airlines are complying with airworthiness directives (ADs) 98% of the time, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). In other words, all is well. But before accepting this declaration, consider a few factors, not the least of which is that the FAA conducted an audit of itself that lacks the test of independence.

“After liftoff, the wings of the airplane rolled to the left and right about 35 inches in each direction” before it struck the ground in a wipe out failed takeoff attempt. This description would seem to apply to the Spanair MD-82 crash 20 August 2008 at Madrid that killed 153 of the 172 people aboard. Actually, the words are from a report of a 1987 accident in Detroit, Michigan, of a DC-9, an earlier version of the MD-82, which killed all but one passenger.