NTSB - Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 14, 2002 SB-02-12

NTSB ISSUES MOST WANTED LIST OF SAFETY IMPROVEMENTS FOR 2002

Washington, D.C. - The National Transportation Safety Board today issued its Most Wanted Transportation Safety Improvements list for 2002. Since the last Most Wanted report, 11 recommendations have been removed from the list. In addition, Pipeline Excavation Damage Prevention, one of the 12 issue areas was removed from the list, while a new issue area, Marine Drug and Alcohol Testing was added. The acceptance rate of the Board's recommendations has remained consistently high and is currently about 82%.

"We are encouraged by the progress that we have seen in the acceptance rate of our recommendations," said NTSB Chairman Marion Blakey. "However, the Board will continue to push federal and state government agencies, industry and private companies for more safety improvements to enhance our transportation system for the benefit of all Americans."

During the 12 months since the last report to the Board, five recommendations on the Most Wanted List have been closed. Those closed during the last year are:

Highway Vehicle Occupant Safety, Education on the need for children to ride in the back seat (Acceptable Action)
On-board Recording Devices for Commercial Trucks (Unacceptable Action)
Recording Devices for Rapid Transit Cars (Acceptable Action)
Fatigue Educational Material for Transportation Personnel (Acceptable Action)
Fatigue Awareness for Transit Employees (Acceptable Action)

In addition, because of acceptable progress, the Board voted today to remove six specific recommendations in three issue areas on the list. Those removed recommendations are:

Highway Vehicle Occupant Safety, establishment of child restraint fitting stations (Acceptable Action)
Pipelines, underground mapping standards to prevent excavation damage and periodic reviews of excavation damage prevention programs in the States (Acceptable Action)
Recreational Boating, legislation requiring the use of personal floatation devices while operating a personal watercraft (Acceptable Action)

The Board also made some revisions to existing recommendations in the areas of Airframe Structural Icing, Fuel Tanks, and Recording Devices. Some of the revisions address the following:

Minimum maneuvering airspeeds for various airplane configurations and conditions of flight, including operating in icing conditions;
Long term solutions to explosive mixtures in fuel tank on transport category aircraft;
Cockpit imaging recording systems, maintenance of flight data recorders, and railroad event recorder crashworthiness standards.

In the Marine mode, Post-accident Alcohol and Drug Testing has been added. The Safety Board is concerned that lack of clarity of regulations and lack of enforcement has resulted in a disregard of the Coast Guard's regulations and contributed to the growth of misconceptions and misinformation about post-accident testing.

Four of the twelve recommendation issue areas have been on the list since its inception in 1990. The Board continues to investigate accidents in these original issue areas of recreational boating safety standards, runway incursions, positive train control, and operator fatigue where the intent of the recommendations has not been met.

The Most Wanted list's purpose is to bring more attention to Board recommendations with the greatest impact on transportation safety.

For a complete copy of the Most Wanted list and recommendations, visit the NTSB web site under Recommendations and Accomplishments.

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Media Contact: Keith Holloway (202) 314-6100

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