Resignations, Lack of Director Raise Concern : Safety Board Struggles With Staff, Budget Woes

WASHINGTON —  The National Transportation Safety Board, in its second year under an acting director, is struggling with a shrinking investigative staff and a tight budget as it tries to pinpoint the causes of the worst accidents in air, sea and ground travel.

Four congressmen say the situation is worsening and, in a recent letter to President Bush, asked him to nominate a director as a first step toward rebuilding morale in the agency and safeguarding its reputation as a leading force for safety.

More pointedly, a top NTSB official has complained that his investigative staff may be so small by year’s end that the agency will have to curtail by one-third the 3,000 or so accident investigations it undertakes each year.

“The bureau’s situation is critical and worsening,” Herbert Banks, the agency’s field operations director, wrote.

Acting Director Blamed

Criticism of the agency’s actions --or lack of action--also comes from former employees who say that the acting chairman, James Kolstad, is afraid to make waves within the government or in the industries the board is supposed to monitor.

Kolstad became acting director in Aug. 14, 1988, after Jim Burnett failed to win Senate approval for a fourth two-year term as chairman.

Burnett, who had acquired a reputation as a strong, independent safety advocate, is widely believe to have angered Sen. Wendell H. Ford (D-Ky.) and the chairman of the Senate aviation subcommittee by speaking out against Ford’s plan to separate the Federal Aviation Administration from the Transportation Department.

Burnett’s renomination languished without the Senate even conducting a hearing on it.

Kolstad has been a target of criticism that he has not dealt with morale problems, has not pushed for increases in the NTSB’s $25.4-million budget, and has not stopped the outflow of investigators.

Nomination Requested

Recently, four ranking members of the House Space, Science and Technology Committee told Bush he should nominate a chairman for the board.

“We believe that continued uncertainty may have a detrimental effect on the activities of the board and its respected leadership role in transportation safety,” said the letter. The congressmen said low morale “could lead to the loss of valuable expertise and experience.”

It was signed by Rep. Robert A. Roe (D-N.J.), the committee chairman, Rep. Robert S. Walker (R-Pa.), the ranking GOP member, Rep. Tim Valentine (D-N.C.), chairman of the panel’s transportation subcommittee, and Rep. Tom Lewis (R-Fla.), the subcommittee’s senior Republican.

For his part, Kolstad said in an interview that he believes morale is better than it was when he took over, but he added:

“There is a concern that we have people in an acting capacity, because it suggests that a lot of change that might otherwise occur can’t occur. There is frustration among some staff people. It’s in everyone’s interest that the matter be resolved.”

Supporters of Burnett who requested anonymity maintain that while Bush may favor Burnett, a longtime political supporter who campaigned for him in Arkansas, some White House advisers dislike Burnett’s outspokenness on safety issues.

Lobbying for Status Quo

They say there has been intensive industry lobbying to keep Kolstad, a former public relations vice president for Frontier Airlines, as chairman.

As for the future of the board’s investigations, Banks, the field operations director, projected in a May 11 memo that six more investigators would quit by the end of this year, and the board would be unable to meet its congressional mandate to investigate all airplane crashes.

Banks’ memo, predicting that the agency would have to cut the number of accidents it investigates each year by 900, never made it to the board. It was sent back by the board’s staff director, Lloyd Miller, so the issue could not be debated by the board and, perhaps, be aired in a public hearing.

Miller, like Kolstad, disagreed with Banks’ assessment and thought the situation not serious enough to be put before the board. Banks would not discuss the memo with a reporter.

Warnings Dismissed

For his part, Kolstad discounted Banks’ concerns as “overly pessimistic.” He said that no major investigation or critical safety problem would have to be dropped.

“There has been a cutback” in investigations, Kolstad said, “but, frankly, we’ve got fewer accidents. The accident rate is improving. That doesn’t suggest we have enough people to investigate the accidents that exist, because we don’t, but I think we’re doing a better job on the ones that we are investigating.”

Two major investigations now under way involve recent incidents of explosive engine failures on DC-10 jetliners, other airliner accidents, oil spills in Alaska and elsewhere, and several freight derailments.

Over the last decade, the NTSB’s staff has been reduced to 324 from more than 400 as many key investigators left for higher-paying jobs in private industry.

Some members of the staff praised Kolstad as personable and competent. Private air safety consultant Charles Miller, once the board’s director of accident investigations, described the acting chairman as a “fine individual” who recognizes his own limitations.

Weak Leadership Cited

Others once associated with the agency voiced a different opinion.

“Kolstad is a caretaker who doesn’t take care of the board,” said former NTSB public affairs director Ira J. Furman, a Woodmere, N.Y., lawyer who keeps current on transportation safety issues and still visits accident sites as a media consultant.

Furman, who left the board in 1987, while Burnett was chairman, said Kolstad has failed to push hard within the Bush Administration for a bigger agency budget.

J. Peter Kissinger, who resigned from the agency’s staff recently after he was shifted from managing director of the staff to a job with considerably less responsibility, said that Kolstad “doesn’t want to rock the boat.”

While the NTSB has no regulatory power of its own, it is the government’s primary accident-investigation agency and makes recommendations to Congress, other agencies and transportation industries.

Burnett and Kolstad have sharply different styles and are often at odds on safety issues. The former chairman is sometimes the only dissenter on the board; the acting chairman has rarely taken a strong position in an open meeting.

Examples of Inaction

Critics of the NTSB cite several incidents as evidence of problems:

* The board never looked into the complaint, filed this spring, of 60 air traffic controllers in Cleveland who signed a petition citing “air traffic chaos” at high altitudes and calling for steps to alleviate the “hazardous environment.”

Lloyd Miller, the acting managing director, intercepted the controllers’ petition before it reached the board. He said it would set a bad precedent to investigate what might be a labor-management problem.

* Kolstad was the board member assigned to the Exxon Valdez oil spill, but he did not go to Alaska to run the investigation.