Rogers Dry Lake, Edwards Air Force Base, California: Fall, 1984
A federal agency that has made as many expensive public mistakes as the FAA must be endowed with some inner strength that keeps it going. The agency has been criticized for its dual purpose: keeping aviation safe while promoting it. But most in aviation see no conflict in the dual role. Safety is a sine qua non in aviation that few outside it can comprehend. No one, particularly the people who fly the airplanes, perceives any gain in shaving maintenance expenses at the risk of an airplane. When one is flying at near Mach 1 at 41,000 ft., this becomes a heartfelt axiom.
As for the promotion of aviation, there are no greater boosters of aviation than the people who wear wings. The FAA is, in a real sense, part of the brotherhood. But once it acts officially, the agency is regarded by aviation as the final word, the legal authority, she who must be obeyed. The agency is held in the highest esteem as a trend-setter by the aviation authorities of other nations, a fact that always comes as a shock to many in America.
The FAA blundered onto national television screens in late fall of 1984, during what became a colorfully humiliating disaster for the agency. The government project, cosponsored with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), sounded simple enough. Britain’s Imperial Chemical Industries and the Royal Aircraft Establishment had devised a fuel modifier termed FM-9, a long-chain polymer that prevents fuel from misting into a haze of droplets. a condition that sets it up for a friction-sparked fire. The FAA had spent five years and more than $11 million on a program to improve the crash-worthiness and fire safety of jet airliners, especially in the fuel fires that can follow violent crashes. Laboratory testing showed the effectiveness of FM-9. A controlled-impact demonstration with an FAA-owned and -operated, 75-seat Boeing 720, fueled by anti-misting kerosene in its four engines, was to be the culminating test in the program. A test site, complete with ground-based steel prongs, “wing openers,” and a field of approach lights, was established on the bombing range at Rogers Dry Lake near the Edward AFB main runway.
The project had a secondary purpose of testing the effect of the crash on an aircraft structure, the passenger and cockpit seats, as well as testing the survivability of airline passengers in the controlled crash. Most of the 75 seats were occupied by instrumented test dummies, to gain data on crash impact. The Boeing 720 had been flow by remote control, with pilots on-board, on 20 previous test flights. All the bugs had been worked out, and the FAA/NASA team was nearly ready for the November 10 flight. White canvas-covered dummies were installed in the 720’s seats, starting with the first rows near the cockpit door. The company that produces the dummies exhausted their supply after installing about 50 dummies. An additional order for dummies was placed for the back of the airplane.
When the installation of dummies was resumed, an FAA official stood at the cockpit door to survey the workmanship. He found not an airplane prepared for a scientific experiment but an example of social inequality. All of the black dummies were confined to the back of the airplane! Concerned that people might get the wrong idea, he ordered an integration of the dummies. Dumbfounded workmen had to remove some of the white canvas dummies from their installed places and reinstall them at the back, to achieve a balanced mix of black and white canvas. A report on the overly sensitive FAA official and his concern for the social equality appeared in Aviation Week & Space Technology in the November 5, 1984, issue, prompting a reader to write:
All America must be proud of the Federal Aviation Administration. Its actions to protect the civil rights of the 75 instrumented dummies who will sacrifice themselves in the interests of air safety ranks as a high point in the long and arduous struggle for the equality of dummies. The next test should be less costly since there will be no need to contract for crash dummies. The FAA has demonstrated that it has an adequate supply within its ranks.
The test was postponed in any case until December 1, and it caused more red faces at the FAA when it actually occurred. The agency had planned on a descent rate for the test aircraft of 15 to 17 feet per second. The agency had disregarded a warning from the manufacturers represented by the Aerospace Industries Association (AIS) that the descent rate was too fast and the crash impact would be too severe. Confident of a publicity bonanza, the FAA invited Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Hanford Dole to appear a the press conference following the test.
On the test day, FAA personnel remotely controlled the Boeing 720 on the takeoff. It was empty of real people but loaded with instrumentation and the integrated dummies. After the takeoff and a left turn crossing south of the target area, the aircraft climbed to 2300 ft. It was turned left again to align with the runway, and the Boeing 720 began a smooth descent.But when it reached an altitude of 150 ft., the nose dropped slightly and the aircraft began to roll. The left wing was low when the Boeing 720 touched down 281 ft. from the target point at a descent rate of 20 to 22 ft. per second. The right wing was penetrated by the wing openers, and a fireball engulfed the airplane. Before a host of television cameras and members of the news media, the fire burned for more than an hour.
The FAA held the press conference as scheduled. Not surprisingly, Mrs. Dole was nowhere to be found. As the fire burned brightly, sending waves of billowing smoke into the air, a government jet lifted off and disappeared into the eastern sky. Astonishingly, much test data was recovered from the blackened hull, but the FAA’s plans for an anti-misting additive went u in smoke over the California desert.
(This article is taken from Airline Odyssey, published in 1995 by McGraw-Hill, by James Ott and Raymond E. Neidl.)
Photo by NASA
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