Hardcover, 373 pages
Published by Avon Books (Trd)
Publication date: April 1997
Dimensions (in inches): 9.58 x 6.45 x 1.27
ISBN: 0380975327

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waer@aol.com, 03/30/97, rating=10:
Exposing the FAA for what it is: INCOMPETENT and DEFECTIVE

Discovering that it was nearly impossible to change things from the inside, Mary Schiavo quit her job as Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Transportation to tell her story from the outside. This she has done with remarkable clarity and just plain guts, attributes not readily found in bureaucratic, fraternal organizations such as the Federal Aviation Administration. "Flying Blind, Flying Safe" is a must read, preferably before your next commercial airline flight! Usually, book jackets tout the significance of what is contained within its covers. What made this "reviewer" sit up and take notice, were statements such as "how the FAA earned its title 'The Tombstone Agency' - and why it deserves it," and "the ever worsening danger of airline maintenance and bogus aircraft parts proliferation" - to name just two such attention-getters. Fortunately, Mary Schiavo's no-holds-barred approach to telling an already compelling story adds to the urgency of her message. Please, read and use this book as a guide to safe air travel, especially your own, for you won't get much help from bland assurances by DOT and FAA officials, that all is well in airline-land, says Schiavo. That the "aviation industry has left an inapt FAA in the dust, with its untrained and unsupervised inspectors, antiquated air traffic control systems, billions of dollars in botched replacement systems, and a dangerous notion of its mission [Mary's words]," comes through loud and clear. Unfortunately, as long as an organization's unstated policy of "cronyism" prevails (and is condoned by Washington and members of an industry), not much will change, not even "from the outside." Without the Mary Schiavos, however, the public would not even be aware of the magnitude of the problem. Every chapter in this book is a veritable gold mine of information, including the one entitled "Airlines." Schiavo writes that there are two very important principles you need to know about airlines and safety. "First, all airlines are NOT created equal...and second, the airlines themselves control airline safety [and not the FAA]...Precisely which airlines do a better job of protecting your safety is not just a secret the FAA keeps from the public. Even the agency does not [seem] to know." Not that the FAA is lax in compiling safety-related data. Far from it! It does collect such information (however incomplete) and does store mountains of such data. But it does not appear to analyze its own data effectively... And that's the sad truth of it all! This review was written by Bruno Lewandowski, Editor & Publisher of World Aero-Engine Review, a newsletter for commercial jet propulsion.

mcpilot@one.net, 04/20/97, rating=10:
The best aviation safety book written

I am a pilot, and my secondary avocation is reading as much aviation safety literature as is printed. This is by far THE best book I've read on the subject. These are not "shrill scare tactics". This is an accurate accounting of the many problems associated with aviation safety. Anyone who watched Frederico Pena declare on the day of the ValueJet crash that "ValueJet is safe--I would fly ValueJet" and then later watched as the FAA shut down ValueJet should realize that what the author is saying has validity. I've seen firsthand the outdated vacuum tube radar equipment. I have navigated to the 1950's radio beacons. I have been in the tower & seen the duct tape holding together the equipment. I was in the air when the Chicago Center Radar failed and an American Eagle commuter passed within 500 feet of a Beech Twin because the controllers had no way to warn the airplanes of each other's proximity. Read this book. This is as good and as acurrate as it gets.

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