Shuttle Investigator Faults NASA for Complacency Over Safety

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/17/na...al/17SHUT.html

"Shuttle Investigator Faults NASA for Complacency Over Safety"
_New York Times_ - July 17, 2003

NASA managers grew so complacent about safety that at times inspectors
were prevented from performing spot checks, an independent investigator
said yesterday.

Brig. Gen. Duane Deal of the Air Force, a member of the independent
board investigating the shuttle Columbia disaster, told The Associated
Press that the program that oversees shuttle inspections within the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration would "take a pretty big
hit" in the final report by the board, which is due at the end of
August.

General Deal, who has conducted 72 private interviews with NASA workers
as part of the investigation, called the inspection program poor, and
said that inspectors were prevented from making spot checks and in one
case had to buy their own magnifier when the procurement process dragged
on for months.

He said said the decline in inspections over time suggested that some
NASA managers were "perhaps out of touch with the realities of manned
spaceflight" and its high level of risk.

Attempts to reach General Deal yesterday through the board were not
successful.

But in public briefings, he and other members of the board have spoken
extensively about the decline in inspections and the need for NASA to go
back to thinking of the shuttle as an experimental vehicle, not an
operational craft.

Adm. Harold W. Gehman Jr., the board's chairman, said at a briefing last
week that NASA should not have the expecation that "when the thing
lands, that you can turn it around and get it back into the air again
quickly."

In a briefing on May 28, General Deal said that the interviews were
showing widespread dissatisfaction with the quality assurance programs
at NASA. "We've interviewed many, many people, from line technicians all
the way up through management, and none of them out there agree that
we're at the 100 percent point," he said. "It's time for a relook."

During that briefing, General Deal said that the number of mandatory
inspection points on the shuttle had dropped to around 8,500 from more
than 40,000.

He said the board interviewers had encouraged NASA safety workers to
talk about general issues as well as specific ones. Along with the
questions about whether they have the budget and the people to do the
job well, he said, "We ask what I commonly call the `King for a Day' or
`Queen for a Day' question: `If you were in charge of all of NASA,
what's been gnawing at you? What would you change if we gave you the
right budget?' "

The board has conducted some 200 interviews, with a promise of
anonymity.

Kyle Herring, a NASA spokesman, said it would be inappropriate to
discuss statements by board members before the final report comes out.
Mr. Herring said the NASA administrator, Sean O'Keefe, had been
"unwavering" in his commitment to carry out the board's recommendations
once the report is published and had appointed a task group to oversee
the accomplishment of those recommendations. "NASA will take every one
of those recommendations seriously," he said.

In a board briefing with reporters last Friday, General Deal said the
goal of the report would be to reinvigorate the safety culture of NASA
at all levels. "You can revise the programs out there and fix the top of
the pyramid, but if we're not taking care of the bottom of it, things
are going to crumble," he said.

[end of article]