air safety. Both the airlines and the federal government have rigorously disputed such charges. It has been, of course, in the interest of both groups to deny the validity of the charges. The airlines regard such a position as necessary to retain public confidence in their operations. The federal government views such a position as necessary support for the deregulation program.
Several crashes and other incidents occurred in the 1980 1985 period that were attributed by some critics to poor maintenance standards on the part of airlines. Statements by major aircraft manufacturers implied that some of the crashes were due to just such causes (Shapiro 2, 67; Ford 80). Similarly, there was some support from aircraft manufacturers for charges that sub standard crew training contributed to some incidents (Shapiro 1, 15; Ford 80).
In mid December 1985, an Arrow Air DC 8 crashed on takeoff in Newfoundland. The flight was a part of a contract with the Department of Defense. All 258 persons aboard were killed. This crash brought to 1,948 the total number of people killed in commercial air crashes in the western countries in 1985 561 of those deaths resulted from crashes of American airliners (Hawkins and Bernstein 34 35). Both crew training deficiencies and aircraft maintenance deficiencies were cited as probable causes for the Arrow Air crash (Hawkins and Bernstein, 34 35). Substandard maintenance and crew error had been linked to other crashes involving passenger deaths in 1985.
On the heels of the Arrow crash, the results of a survey of professional airline pilots in the United States was released. A total of 762 (63.5 percent) of the 1,200 commercial passenger pilots surveyed stated that deregulation had made air travel more dangerous. Half of the pilots stated that the quality of aircraft maintenance had suffered as a result of deregulation, and also indicated that crew training had suffered as well.
During the se...