As U.S. air cargo deaths mount, the industry remains under the radar

BY RONNIE GREENE

rgreene@MiamiHerald.com

SHADY SHORES, Texas -- At 24, Nicholas Hibberd already was teaching others to fly, and with the hours he logged ferrying freight, this pilot's son was chasing his own dream of passenger flight.

He did not know it, but his cargo plane was terribly flawed that brisk December morning. A week before, the attitude indicator, a crucial device that shows the plane's position along the horizon, had gone haywire, aborting a flight. For days before Hibberd's cargo run, crews reinstalled and checked it.

The problems could have grounded a passenger jet filled with people. But not so for air cargo -- where delivering goods on time is industry lifeblood.

In overcast skies 34 minutes before sunrise, the Cessna 402C lost control. "The attitude indicator is, ah, is ah, not helping me out too much so I may need a little bit of help," Hibberd radioed, keeping cool amid sudden chaos. "It's very hard to fly . . ."

Losing the instrument in turbulent weather, experts say, is like driving in a pitch-black tunnel with no headlights.

In an instant the plane crashed, killing Hibberd and thunderously raining debris upon a home in this rural town 30 miles northwest of Dallas, narrowly missing the couple inside.

His 2002 death, quietly marked with a white cross and wreath that straddle the side of the road here, is one tragic snapshot in an industry tainted with many.

From Texas to Alaska to Colorado and beyond, cargo pilots are dying in large numbers. Other cargo planes are falling from the sky in treacherous near misses, including an aged DC-3 that crashed on a bustling Fort Lauderdale street last year, its wreckage and fuel settling just yards from homes in what prosecutors now say was an illegal bandit flight.

Yet beyond loved ones left behind, few are paying attention, and the Federal Aviation Administration -- the industry's watchdog -- has ignored specific pleas to upgrade safety for a highly competitive business plagued by a culture of cut corners, loose oversight and risky flying, a Miami Herald investigation found.

The newspaper analyzed National Transportation Safety Board reports on every fatal U.S. cargo crash since 2000, along with FAA inspection and enforcement files, internal company memos, safety studies, lawsuits and industry reports. Those records, coupled with interviews with aviation experts, former government regulators and cargo pilots, reveal systemic safety breakdowns in this oft-ignored industry:

. Cargo planes operate under less stringent safety rules than passenger planes, and cargo pilots are allowed to fly up to 40 percent more hours a year. Yet they work in a pressure-cooker environment to deliver goods on time, often flying in icy, hazardous weather.

One pilot, so tired that he had previously fallen asleep at the controls, begged for someone to join him on a flight in June 2005. No help came, and that morning the 27-year-old died when his plane crashed into a Colorado mountain.

His Utah cargo company had been fined seven times in five years for a string of safety violations, yet it continued to fly despite its spotty record and failure to pay most of the fines. The FAA revoked its license, but only after the deadly 2005 crash.

In Ohio, a cargo company with a history of deaths praised its pilots for finishing their flights with scarce fuel.

. In nearly a quarter of fatal crashes, mechanical problems were not fixed before cargo pilots took off, a safety breakdown that would be unacceptable in passenger planes.

One veteran cargo pilot pleaded with the FAA for help, writing of "crews pushed to fly exhausted . . . cargo doors opening, engines flaming out."

Not long after, slipshod maintenance caused one of that company's planes to crash in a California auto salvage yard, killing three.

. The FAA allows cargo companies to continue operating despite blatant maintenance lapses and histories of crashes.

For years, the FAA knew an Albany, N.Y., cargo company had four planes that were not certified to fly in icing conditions, but never enforced its own rules -- until one of the planes crashed in icing in New Hampshire in 2000, killing the pilot, 39.

In a pattern repeated across the country, FAA inspectors unearth problems, some of them alarming, and cargo companies promise repairs. The planes are soon back in the air, only to encounter more mechanical failings. The industry's most troubled operators shut down only after death tolls rise or finances dwindle.

. Two turboprops that are among the most popular in the industry, the Cessna 208B and Mitsubishi MU-2, account for one-fourth of all fatal crashes.

The FAA twice denied requests from Mitsubishi to boost pilot training programs, only to see the MU-2 involved in repeated crashes. The Cessna continues to fly despite urgent concerns, spelled out in the government's own memos, about the plane's handling in icing.

"I'm not sure why we need to wait until one crashes in the middle of Disneyland before people are going to take notice of the fact that these planes are going down," said Lara Goldman Lennon. Her husband, Thomas, died in an MU-2 that crashed in 2004 in a driveway near Baltimore-Washington International Airport while transporting canceled checks.

LOW PRIORITY FOR FAA

Despite these problems, the FAA and major industry groups have not heeded pleas to set a standard level of safety, even as the government's own dwindling inspection force often leaves companies to monitor themselves.

The FAA, the federal agency charged with keeping the skies safe, has failed to address the industry's most serious problems. Time and again, the FAA has been chided by safety advocates and government regulators for not aggressively monitoring air cargo.

A deadly Miami crash in 1997 shed light on how lax the FAA was, and nine years later, criticism continues as more planes fall.

"The Federal Aviation Administration spent very few resources on cargo oversight," said Mary F. Schiavo, former inspector general of the U.S. Department of Transportation. "It equals a greater risk, and sometimes it means a loss of life."

Pilots and safety advocates say the industry receives less attention because of a striking numbers game: When a cargo plane falls, the body count is typically one -- the single pilot, often flying for an obscure company.

"The FAA is spread very thin and they're concerned more with passenger operations than with freight," said Jonathon Ford, a veteran cargo pilot. "If a freight plane goes down, you are only going to lose a pilot, and if a passenger plane goes down you are going to lose a lot of people."

Yet the industry's safety implications extend beyond single pilots. More than a dozen times since 2000, cargo planes have crashed on residential streets, in driveways, on golf courses, in a lake near high-rise condos or near shopping centers and construction sites -- in some cases, just missing clusters of people.

The planes' bellies are filled with potential hazards. They crisscross the country ferrying explosives, poisons, oxidizers, corrosives, flammable liquids, gases, batteries, aerosols, nitric acid and sulfuric acid, FAA records show.

LOW-PROFILE INDUSTRY

While FedEx and UPS, the world's two biggest cargo carriers, are household names, the plethora of smaller operators are not. But they help fuel the industry's economic engine.

Cargo pilots fly in an industry that remains very much under the public radar. Their planes typically travel late at night into small airports far from the congested hubs most travelers encounter, with names such as Pang-born Memorial, Skagit Regional, Lee Gilmer Memorial, Gaylord Regional and Keene Dillant-Hopkins airports.

The men and women who fly these planes often do so for scant pay and in the shadow of high-profile airline pilots. Some have come up with a nickname that captures their navigational skill and risky work: freight dogs. In their profession, small cargo pilots are at the bottom tier.

Yet their work is a driving force of U.S. commerce, with cargo pilots transporting bank records, medical supplies, factory parts, holiday gifts, business letters and scores of other products. It's not just big industry that drives air cargo, but individual consumers who order goods shipped overnight with the tap of a keyboard.

In the U.S., air express accounts for more than 70 percent of air cargo shipments, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found. Revenue for U.S. air and express freight was nearly $30 billion in 2004, a record, a private company found.

Behind the scenes of this bustling industry, cargo planes continue to fall, even as officials say U.S. aviation is safer than ever.

"The safest three-year period in aviation history," FAA spokesman Les Dorr said in a November interview.

Yet U.S. cargo planes crashed with deadly consequences nearly a dozen times a year on average from 2000-04. Every month, another cargo pilot was killed.

The number of fatal crashes dipped to six in 2005, still far more than safety advocates say is acceptable, but the reprieve was temporary. In the first three months of 2006, four cargo planes crashed, one in Tennessee, two in Washington state and another in Montana, taking six lives.

For air cargo, the rules are different.

AN AGING FLEET

Cargo planes have a strike against them even before they take to the air. Many are old -- nearly 26 years old, on average, for the fallen planes, more than three times the age of typical airline passenger aircraft, records show.

Older planes have fewer modern safety features, and they are sometimes plagued by deteriorating engines or breakdowns in crucial flight instruments, a combination that helps trigger cargo's high number of crashes.

"These guys are remote, they are flying at 2 or 3 in the morning. You think an FAA inspector is going to go out and bird-dog somebody like that? Flying out of little, crappy airports?" said former FAA inspector Bart Crotty.

"The FAA is going to spend their oversight dollars . . . on the commercial operators that are flying passengers."

Cargo planes are part of a family of small aircraft, along with air taxis, charters and emergency medical service helicopters, that has the highest crash rate of any type of commercial aviation, a Miami Herald analysis, government reports and private industry figures show.

Within its dangerous group of aircraft, air cargo's fatal toll stands out. Cargo crashes are 50 percent more likely to result in fatalities than similarly regulated planes carrying passengers, The Miami Herald found in an analysis of NTSB data from 2000 to 2005.

To this day, the FAA has not conducted its own study of air cargo's crash rate.

FAA Administrator Marion C. Blakey declined to be interviewed. "While a formal study . . . has not been done, the FAA is aware of the higher accident rate in this type of operation," the agency wrote in reply to written questions to Blakey.

The FAA said it has established a new organization, the Commuter, On Demand and Training Center Branch, to explore safety issues involving that family of aircraft.

HANDS-OFF APPROACH

While insisting that its regulations "provide an extremely high level of safety," the FAA said "the primary responsibility for compliance with regulations and safe operations lies WITH THE AIR CARRIER."

Critics say that approach is part of the problem.

Leaving control largely in the hands of an industry known for its tight deadlines and tighter profits invites problems. Air cargo pilots, by nature, are exposed to greater risks than those encountered by other pilots.

The nature of their work -- just-in-time delivery -- adds safety pitfalls.

"We're definitely considered the dogs of the flying industry. We fly older airplanes in crappy weather, in small airports," said pilot Ford.

To meet deadlines, cargo planes are forced to fly after hours, or "against the clock'' as pilots say. This means they are traveling as most of the country sleeps, and in dark night conditions that can make flying more difficult.

Experts say many cargo pilots, particularly those flying for smaller companies, get paid only when the goods arrive. The way to move up the aviation industry ladder to better paying jobs: logging hours in the air.

"If you don't get it there, you don't get paid. It's a tough business," said Robert E. Breiling, whose Boca Raton company compiles industry crash figures. "They are pushing their airplanes because hey are trying to make a buck."

PILOT PROBLEMS

Cracks in the system allow some pilots with histories of problems to continue to fly.

One chief cargo pilot, Jody Rex Pond, had been convicted in December 1985 for conspiracy and distribution of cocaine. He was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison, with six years suspended, records say. The FAA later moved to revoke his license, but gave it back in 1991, citing his "substantial progress towards rehabilitation."

Yet after Pond was involved in an accident while landing in Anchorage, Alaska, in 1998, the FAA did not test him for drugs, NTSB records show.

In January 2001, a Douglas DC-3 piloted by Pond, 53, crashed into mountains near Unalaska, Alaska, killing him and his girlfriend, the 39-year-old first officer. Pond had cocaine in his system.

"There's no regulation that's perfect, but I think we do an outstanding job," said Dr. Frederick Tilton, the FAA's Federal Air Surgeon.

Three years later, another Alaska cargo crash raised questions anew.

That veteran chief pilot had a history of cocaine and alcohol arrests. Yet after he landed on the Anchorage taxiway in early 2004 he was not tested for drugs. Five months later, he fatally crashed near Kodiak, Alaska, with cocaine in his system. The NTSB cited the FAA's "inadequate medical certification of the pilot and follow-up of his known substance abuse problem'' as a contributor to the crash.

Despite the industry's competitive cutthroat culture, the FAA has repeatedly failed to stop unsafe cargo operations -- until tragedy strikes. Even then, it has yet to fully address long-term safety issues pushed by advocates.

A 2000 crash in California revealed shaky FAA oversight of a cargo operator blatantly skirting safety rules: Emery Worldwide Airlines.

In September 1998, Capt. Thomas G. Rachford, chairman of the Airline Pilots Association Council 110 and an Emery pilot, sent an FAA official in California a letter telling of "crews pushed to fly exhausted . . . cargo doors opening, engines flaming out, engines burning up."

"I can't say it any clearer: This airline is going to put a hole in the ground and kill someone. Please do not let this fall upon deaf ears."

In January 1999, the FAA detailed ''serious trends of noncompliance'' by Emery.

"Get the freight to its destination and quit griping or disciplinary action will ensue!'' the memo quoted an Emery director. The FAA vowed to crack down on Emery, saying it would require the company to fully comply with safety rules within 30 days.

Yet by September 1999, some pilots still were desperate. "Mechanics are forced to sign off items in the logbooks for fear of their jobs," Rachford wrote the FAA.

Emery crews, he wrote, ''are living on borrowed time."

In January 2000, the FAA placed Emery under heightened oversight. Inspectors would ultimately find more than 100 violations of aviation regulations -- a systemic breakdown including unairworthy planes, inadequate repairs and unapproved aircraft alterations.

The FAA has the power to ground a carrier, but the airline continued to fly. "Revoking a carrier's certificate is the most serious action we can take, and the agency has to have basically ironclad proof because we almost certainly will be forced to defend our action in court," the FAA said.

On Feb. 16, 2000, Emery Flight 17 crashed in an automobile salvage yard while returning to Sacramento's Mather Airport for an emergency landing, killing captain Kevin Stables, 43; first officer George Land, 35; and second officer Russell Hicks, 38.

"Hey, you're hanging by that bolt, you know," the first officer said after takeoff that evening. The reply from the cockpit: "Yeah. Jesus nut."

Five minutes later the second officer said, "We're sinking. We're going down, guys," and in moments the giant DC-8 pummeled land filled with people hours earlier.

The NTSB said a loosened elevator bolt triggered a domino effect that forced the plane to fly in a severe nose-up position after takeoff: ''The disconnection was caused by the failure to properly secure and inspect the attachment bolt."

In December 2002, Emery returned its operating certificate to the FAA. Rachford is now lead plaintiff in a lawsuit that alleges Emery breached its contract with flight crews when it shut down and "deliberately permitted its maintenance operations to deteriorate." The company disputes the suit.

Since Emery Flight 17, 66 cargo planes have fatally crashed in the U.S.

"Nobody cares," said Rachford, still a cargo pilot. "Until we wind up wiping out a schoolyard, then all of a sudden everyone will be on board. Then everyone will say, 'We told you so, we told you so.' I swear to God, until we kill 250 or 300 people because a plane crashes somewhere, people won't do anything."

A COMMUNITY SHAKEN

In Shady Shores, Texas, Nicholas Hibberd's final flight is a case study into the dangers of the industry.

His 1979 Cessna 402C had serious maintenance issues before it crashed near a house, hurling debris through a bedroom window and narrowly missing a couple inside -- Joleen Pomar, a billing manager for Waste Management, and boyfriend Rusty Elliott, a sales associate for Wal-Mart.

The plane came to rest in the garage of their home.

"She comes running down the hall, wanting to know what happened. I just told her to call 911," Elliott said.

"It blew big holes in the house," Pomar said. "It's one of those things you don't want to think about a lot."

The couple remain shaken over the collision and loss of a young pilot from nearby.

Hibberd's father, brother, sister and brother-in-law all have flown. A University of Texas honors graduate, his destiny was clear.

"Pilot's kids become pilots," said father Larry Hibberd, a former Navy pilot who flew for Southwest Airlines for 26 years. "He was so focused on being a pilot."

Cargo was the way Nicholas paid his dues, just as his brother, Jeff, had, and he flew for Denton's Tex Star Air Freight when he died.

Nicholas once surprised his father at Christmas with a painted replica of the F-4 Phantom he flew in the Navy. The picture hangs in the family's house today, some five miles from the crash site and covering 28 acres of roaming hill country, with racehorses outside and mementos honoring Nicholas and the aviation industry inside.

His mother Darlene's wish? ''I would like them to upgrade the equipment," she said.

The NTSB blamed "the failure of the attitude indicator." His case is not unique: In three of every 10 fatal cargo crashes, records show, mechanical failings or company operating lapses were a factor.

A year before Hibberd's crash, another company plane slammed into the ground on final approach to Del Rio International Airport, killing the pilot, 28. Maintenance failure caused the 1978 Cessna to fall.

FAA inspections later found serious lapses at Tex Star Air Freight, which frequently ferried film, documenting several unairworthy aircraft and finding that the company's maintenance director "did not demonstrate the competency and knowledge'' to hold the post. In 2005, facing more civil fines after its second fatal crash, the company surrendered its operating certificate.

Reached in Texas, Tex Star Air Freight President Mark Huff said his company did everything it could "without a doubt'' to keep its planes safe.

"It's very unfortunate it happened to my company within an 18-month time frame, but you are playing with fire every day to a certain degree," Huff said. "The only way to avoid it in this industry is to not be in it."

Herald staff writer Jason Grotto contributed to this report.