Boeing CEO promises 'quantum step' in safety
           Company trying to improve human control of planes
     Washington September 26, 1997 - 11:29 a.m. EDT  -- Boeing Corp.
 chief executive Phil Condit said his company would soon take a
 "quantum step" in airplane safety by making human and technical
 changes in cockpits.
 But Condit reiterated on Thursday that Boeing fails to see merit
 in National Transportation Safety Board recommendations aimed at
 preventing 747s from blowing up in the air, as TWA flight 800 did
 last year in New York.
     Instead, the world's largest airplane company is trying improve
 human control of the airplane. Condit said Boeing is looking at new
 training to change the traditional leader-follower relationship
 between pilot and copilot.
     And new equipment may help reduce pilot errors that send air-
 planes crashing into the sides of mountains, which Condit said
 accounts for about 60 percent of fatal aircraft accidents.
                          New technology
     Condit said Boeing is matching up Global Positioning Satellites
 to electronic terrain maps so airplanes will be able to "sense" when
 they are close to trouble. GPS receivers are already used in luxury
 cars to show drivers exactly where they are on electronic maps.
     "We're on the edge of being able to know where the airplane is,
 exactly, and where the mountains are, exactly, and be able to tell
 the pilot efficiently where that is," he said.
     "Now, there are some neat things that have to be done to accomp-
 lish that but we're coming up on that kind of technological change,"
 Condit said. "And I think that's going to be powerful."
     He said Boeing is slowly moving toward installation of such
 equipment in new planes and eventually will be able to retrofit its
 older planes.
                         Cockpit cooperation
     At the same time, he said, Boeing is examining the psychology of
 pilot-co-pilot relationships in the cockpit.
     Condit said when a co-pilot defers to the captain in a two-per-
 son airplane crew on the assumption that "'I am not going to inter-
 fere' ... then you lose a piece of what is valuable."
     Boeing is studying ways to train people to be able to listen to
 each other in critical circumstances. That's where the value of two
 crew (members) occurs," he said. "That is a fundamental issue that
 is very much a part of where we're headed."
                       No changes to fuel tanks
     But Condit said his company was not about to take a recommenda-
 tion to alter its fuel tanks to prevent another disaster such as
 when Flight 800 crashed, killing all 230 persons aboard.
     A continuing investigation into the cause of the crash of the
 flight on July 17, 1996, shortly after takeoff from New York, has
 focused on why the nearly empty center fuel tank exploded. A bomb
 or missile has been all but ruled out.
     In December, the National Transportation Safety Board recom-
 mended jet manufacturers and airlines take steps to reduce the danger
 of such explosions, including the possible development of "inerting
 systems" that would pump nitrogen into fuel tanks to prevent the
 buildup of flammable vapors.
     But Federal Aviation Administration so far has declined to act
 and Condit does not like the idea. Changes in complex systems are
 difficult to judge, he said.
     "You've got to judge, 'Am I increasing the overall level of
 safety or am I not increasing it?' That is where the debate
 currently sits," he said.
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