After watching FAA administrator Michael Huerta interviewed on network news last night, I felt so much better. For all the administrators I’ve covered in some way, and that’s about nine, he is absolutely the most skilled at giving polished, content-free answers and he doles these out not just to us ink-stained wretches in the GA press, but to national networks as well. How comforting it is to be an equal opportunity mushroom.
Recall at AirVenture in July, Huerta managed to piss off the entire Meet the Administrator crowd by dissembling and dodging reasonable questions about the Third Class medical. This week, he’s non-answering about the security breach and sabotage at Chicago Center that brought a substantial share of the nation’s air traffic to a grinding halt over the weekend. It’s slowly getting back to normal, thanks to heroic efforts by the controller workforce.
The FAA caught a break in the news cycle on this because just as it was happening, The Washington Post revealed that another government agency, the Secret Service, significantly misled the public on the seriousness of the intruder who got into the White House 11 days ago. That will lead to some post haste grilling of Julia Pierson, who directs that agency. Personally, I think she should be shown the door. Thanks for your service, here’s your watch.
Once that imbroglio cools, Huerta should get his turn. What’s most maddening about this guy and the agency he directs is its lack of accountability. It rarely feels it owes the public an explanation for or of anything, thus when Huerta was asked by NBC what steps had been taken to improve security, he blithely said the Center processing rooms have “appropriate security.” Well, evidently not, or we wouldn’t be having this problem.
When Huerta goes before Congress, as I hope he will, he’ll surely be asked about a GAO report in 2005 raising concerns about the vulnerability of FAA facilities to data security issues and sabotage. In 2011, the FAA’s own inspector general (PDF) expressed shock that outsiders were allowed almost unrestricted access to Center processing facilities and/or their data feeds. “The sensitive information may provide a rogue employee or contractor sufficient understanding to identify and exploit weaknesses in the air traffic security structure,” the audit said. It was referring to data processing not physical security, but a breach is a breach.
This is no trivial matter, either. Safety is a concern, of course, but the larger impact is economic. Multiple thousands of disrupted commercial flights ripple through not just the air traffic system, but the economy itself. Shipments are missed, mail is delayed, business appointments lost, fuel and time wasted trying to sort everything out and get back to normal, revenue is lost and people’s lives are disrupted. No one in their right mind would, for a moment, suggest that the FAA is not keenly aware of all this. I would just like Michael Huerta, at least once, to utter a substantive sentence saying as much.
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