NASA Releases Cryptic Airline Safety Data

An anonymous reader writes "NASA released part of a controversial study about air traffic safety Monday. The space agency spent $11 million on a survey of airline pilots. Agency officials were so disturbed by the findings that they intended to destroy the information rather than release it. But at an October congressional hearing, NASA administrator Michael Griffin changed tack and said the agency would release its findings. The research shows that safety problems occur far more often than previously recognized. NASA has been criticized however for not providing 'documentation on how to use its data, nor did it provide keys to unlock the cryptic codes used in the dataset.'"

Oh no!

[Anonymous Coward]

This makes me afraid to fly with pilots on board. It would probably be safer if only computers flew the planes. There would also be no way to hijack a plane. I'm very scared.

I think the airlines should lobby to make me safer by having no pilots on board, then the fares would go down too.

I'm very afraid. Fire the pilots, or at least only have one on board. That would be safer.

Getting rid of my rights to a fair trial would also make me feel safer.

reminds me of the onion

[gradedcheese]

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/proposed_classified_bill_will [theonion.com]

Rep. John Haller (R-PA) introduces a bill that will allocate (classified) dollars over the next (classified) years to fight flesh-eating (classified).

Right!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to print out the PDF and masturbate to it. If no-one knows how to interpret the data, I'll do it in a sexy way.

Re:Right!

[Anonymous Coward]

at a medium pace?

Summary:

[urcreepyneighbor]

"OMG! WE ALL GUNNA DIE!"

It further advises to:

"Kiss your ass goodbye, because the proles don't want to spend the money to fix the antiquated system."

I hope the translation is accurate, but my bureaucratese is a little rusty - much like the wings of the planes you people flew in during your holiday travels. :)

Re:NASA's mission

[Butisol]

That has to be the stupidest comment I've ever posted to Slashdot... and I get a "5, Insightful." WTF?

Re:On a wing and a prayer

[mcrbids]

his reminds me of the time President Bush dismissed an EPA http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/06/03/tech/main510920.shtml [cbsnews.com]? [cbsnews.com] Bush dismisses global warming warning on global sarming as the work of the the bureaucracy.

Oh yeah... that was so funny, I ... eh, eh, what was that you said?

Re:NASA's mission

[Matey-O]

You're not bending the stats correctly. Rather than saying you'll have one disaster per 100 flights, you should put it in terms of Million Miles Flown per incident.

Then classify an incident as 'unintended disassembly'.

Re:that G-sey feeling

[ScrewMaster]

... the bank angle.

The bank angle, of course, being the problem so many airlines are in financial trouble nowadays.