Retiring NTSB Chairman Sumwalt Reflects on 15 Years With the Board
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For as long as he can remember, National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Robert Sumwalt has wanted to work in aviation and the larger field of transportation safety. At the end of June, Sumwalt is closing out nearly 15 years with NTSB, including four as chairman.
Sumwalt told Transport Topics that he is ready to enter the next phase of his life, as he is leaving on his 65th birthday and as one of the safety agency’s longest-serving members.
“I’ve had a wonderful tenure at the NTSB. I do believe that 15 years is long enough for any one person to serve on a board like this,” Sumwalt said.
A retired airline pilot, Sumwalt says he’s exceptionally proud that during his time on the board there has not been a major domestic airline accident with a high loss of life. Aviation safety experts point out that there have been regional airline accidents and some deaths involving the major carriers. However, aviation is much safer than it was from the 1950s through the 1990s, when it was not uncommon to have one major accident a year. Now, it has been almost 20 years since a plane crashed in New York City killing 265 people.
Robert Sumwalt's
Views On …
The airline industry: "The airlines for the past 25 years have been routinely monitoring everything on their flights."
Road fatalities: “There ought to be social outrage that we lose so many people and have so many serious injuries on our nation’s roadways each year."
Recreational marijuana: "The bottom line is, if the state law allows it, just don’t get into a commercial vehicle and operate it."
“The airlines have done an excellent job of managing safety over the years,” Sumwalt said. “The airlines for the past 25 years have been routinely monitoring everything on their flights. We have black boxes on airplanes, used for crashes, to reconstruct a crash.
“But the airlines discovered if we’re getting all this data, we might as well use it to improve our safety. And the airlines download and analyze before there are any problems. A number of things have come together to allow the major airlines to have an exemplary safety record.”
On the flip side of the dramatic improvements in aviation, Sumwalt said he is growing increasingly concerned that traffic accidents on the nation’s highways and roads are increasing at a time when, miles driven have dropped because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a preliminary report, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in 2020 an estimated 38,680 people died in traffic crashes, the most since 2007 and up 7% from the previous year. The increase came even though the number of miles traveled by vehicles declined 13% from 2019.
“There ought to be social outrage that we lose so many people and have so many serious injuries on our nation’s roadways each year. The numbers are going the wrong way,” Sumwalt said. “We have seen cases where people are playing video games instead of paying attention to the road. We need to get our minds back on the road while driving.”
Sumwalt is shown from his days as a captain with US Airways. (Photo courtesy of Robert Sumwalt)
He believes stricter laws are needed for impaired and distracted driving and increased enforcement.
Sumwalt said when it comes to commercial transportation, he also is becoming concerned about the movement in many states and by local governments to legalize recreational use of marijuana.
He points out that while pilots and those that hold a commercial drivers license may live in states or cities that have allowed marijuana use, those people in transportation jobs are banned from using the drug because they are governed by the federal government’s rules and regulations.
“From a transportation safety perspective, drugs and marijuana are a huge problem,” he said. “There is great concern about the legalization of marijuana and other drugs when it comes to transportation safety. The bottom line is, if the state law allows it, just don’t get into a commercial vehicle and operate it. Stay home.”
Full Interview
The full interview with NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt can be heard on Transport Topics Radio on SiriusXM Channel 146, Saturday, June 12 at 1 pm EDT and Sunday, June 13 at noon EDT.
Sumwalt said that during the past 15 months of the pandemic, NTSB has been forced to operate under different rules, only occasionally sending out field investigators to accident scenes.
“We took a very cautious approach before sending people out,” Sumwalt said. “There are other sources where we could get the information about the accident.”
But now that the pandemic is receding, the agency is returning to a more pre-pandemic role and Sumwalt said he is most proud of how he and the board responded to the crisis.
“The greatest honor of my life has been to lead this agency the last four years,” he said. “I think I’ve still got a lot of fire in my belly, and it will be fun to see what the next chapter of my life is.”
President Joe Biden has nominated former Capitol Hill staffer and current board member Jennifer Homendy to become chair.
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