After completing an expensive study of safety problems like near collisions and runway interference, the Administration found far more dangerous conditions than anticipated. The result: it has withheld the information and ordered the destruction of documents to protect the industry from its own errors.
Indeed, after interviewing roughly 24,000 commercial and general aviation pilots over nearly four years, NASA shutdown the project and killed any disclosure of the facts to the public. Associate administrator Thomas S. Luedtke, said that the Administration was trying to protect the industry’s profits from a backlash if the public saw the actual information. It is a pretty surprising concession for a public official but constitutes a great example of “agency capture,” where regulator becomes so close to an industry that it becomes the advocate for the industry rather than the public. For the full story, here