ABSTRACT

The date commonly attributed to the birth of aviation is December 17, 1903. It was during that year that bicycle builders Orville and Wilbur Wright took to the skies in a heavier-than-air, powered, and controllable craft they had constructed called the Wright Flyer. The US government played little role in promoting or regulating safety in the early days of aviation. As the growth of the aviation industry resulted in increasing public awareness of incidents and accidents involving aircraft, Congress eventually passed the Air Commerce Act of 1926. This legislation charged the Department of Commerce with the operation and maintenance of the airway system, and to provide safety through a system of regulation. For the regulator and safety professional of the 1980s and 1990s, the combination of the relative flattening of the accident rate and the projections of substantial growth of the volume of air travel, resulted in simple but sobering prediction—a projected increase in number of fatal accidents in US.