NASA Upcoming PR Nightmare

By way of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press:

It seems that NASA has been less-than-forthcoming about the results from an expensive, $8.5-million study it funded. An AP reporter wanted to follow-up with the results from the study. When NASA evidently would not voluntarily give them up, the reporter filed a FOIA. Then, NASA denied the request. In the meantime, she got a hint why through unofficial sources at the agency. The AP summarized,

"A vast national survey of pilots by NASA has found that safety issues, such as near collisions and runway interference, occur far more frequently than previously recognized, but the agency is refusing to release the information, fearing it would upset travelers and hurt airline profits."

That basically explains why NASA would want to withhold the results from its National Aviation Operations Monitoring Service study. They at least answered it honestly in their rebuke of the AP reporter. According to the AP, the rejection letter explained:

"Release of the requested data, which are sensitive and safety-related, could materially affect the public confidence in, and the commercial welfare of, the air carriers and general-aviation companies whose pilots participated in the survey,"

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know my philosophy is a little bit of sunshine is a great disinfectant. By the sound of it, there is good reason for the public to be concerned. And the only way people are held accountable and changes get made is if the bad news gets out, and they are pressured into making reforms. And if the public's faith is shattered- then so be it. If the problem had been dealt with all along, this study wouldn't have come back with the results it did. It sounds like these problems have existed for a long time and have been swept under the table.

Now, for the public relations professionals- don't go into defensive mode. The smart thing to do is make a principal available from either an airline association or your individual airline. Acknowledge that the study raises troubling findings. And hopefully you can truthfully say that you know about the problems and have been working on them for quite some time to make sure these near-misses don't continue to happen.

And I post this blog entry today because it sounds like the results of the study will eventually become public-- either through the FOIA or through upcoming Congressional hearings.

And that 11-second sound-bite is 11 seconds less in a 1:15 package devoted to the negative findings.

You can read a much different version of NASA's level of cooperation in this report filed by UPI: