When the airliner pulled up to the gate, the first indication that something was amiss came from a shock felt by the crew that ran through the plane at the same instant that a sign on the terminal wall illuminated the message “STOP.” As soon as the engines shut down, the cabin services manager rushed to the cockpit and announced that the airplane had collided with the air bridge and that there was a gaping hole in the wing.

Aircraft reciprocating engines may be more complex than jet engines, not only in terms of the number of parts, but the stresses they undergo, and actions to assure their airworthiness have not been effective. So much for a half-century of accident investigations, recommendations which may be of marginal impact, and piecemeal regulatory fixes such as airworthiness directives (ADs). This finding, of holes in the net of safety assurance, is the central conclusion of a recent Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) study of aircraft reciprocating-engine failures. As the report delicately stated, “The recurrence of power train component structural failure suggests that corrective actions that are part of the airworthiness assurance system may have been ineffective.”

The thing about soliciting public comments on a website maintained by the agency is that they do not create pressure or a legal mandate for change, the way such comments might do if submitted to Congress or filed as part of a regulatory deliberation.

In this respect, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) may have conceived of a brilliant ploy to defuse public ire by creating a blog where individuals could log comments about the aviation security system. The blog was activated 30 January with much happy talk from TSA officials and from the 5-person team of TSA bloggers detailed to moderate the discussions.