The Wall Street Journal’s Andy Pasztor and Christopher Conkey show little mercy to the Federal Aviation Administration in a A1 piece blasting the aviation agency’s bureaucratic failures. FAA hasn’t forced the airline industry to make a safer refueling tanker– 12 years after a tanker explosion killed 230 people on TWA Flight 800.  FAA also hasn’t modernized its air traffic control system. It hasn’t instituted the technology needed to prevent colliding aircraft. And FAA hasn’t tackled pilot fatigue.

Overall, it’s a very good piece of preventive journalism, even looking at the agency’s entire history. But it seems that the fact plane-related fatalities keep going down needs to be mentioned higher. There are certainly reasons to be worried about whether the FAA is doing their job. But if you look at the most important quantitative measure, the agency is actually doing well.-MB

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