It Took a Cabinet Member’s Death

Prompted by the crash that killed Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown and 34 others in Croatia earlier this month, Defense Secretary William Perry has ordered the armed forces to equip their passenger aircraft with safety devices including satellite navigation aids and permanent flight data recorders. The planes, in addition to other uses, shuttle VIPs in many parts of the world.

Such instrumentation has been a part of commercial aviation for years. So why is the military just getting around to making the changes in its passenger fleet? In plain terms, safety has been a low priority.

The plane carrying Brown and a number of U.S. business executives crashed into a mountainside after veering off course in bad weather on its final approach to the Dubrovnik airport. The dangerous conditions and outdated equipment should have given pause to not only the pilots but to the superior officers who approved the flight.

Air Force rules required airplanes landing at the Dubrovnik airport to do so only in clear weather during daylight hours. Not only were those orders ignored, but the pilots, who had never been to Dubrovnik, flew to the airport using compasses and radio beacons rather than more sophisticated navigation gear.

The cause of the accident is still under investigation. But whether this crash resulted from pilot error, equipment failure, weather or some combination probably will never be known: There was no flight data recorder, or “black box,” which records cockpit voice transmissions as well as mechanical and electronic data.

In a letter to service secretaries last week, Perry called the installation of the data recorders “a matter of the highest priority.” As a result, all planes will be retrofitted with the devices.

In addition, the Pentagon, as an interim measure, will require hand-held global positioning systems--devices that receive signals from satellites to pinpoint location--to be in use in its 2,857 military passenger planes by Sept. 30. By the end of the century, say defense officials, GPS devices will be permanently installed in all its fixed-wing planes and passenger-carrying helicopters.

Accelerating the installation of these devices will cost $335 million over what the services already have budgeted for upgrading navigation systems in the next three years. But as the commercial airline industry has learned, safety is worth it.