WASHINGTON — According to the Associated Press, the board that investigates major transportation accidents, including the crash of a commuter plane in North Carolina last week, will have nobody in charge as early as next week unless President Bush designates someone quickly.
In a letter obtained by The Associated Press, Carol Carmody, acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, warned White House chief of staff Andy Card that her term as vice chairman expires Saturday.
No one will have the authority to run the board, she wrote, unless Bush appoints a sitting member of the five-member board to take her place.
“Let me urge immediate attention to our problem, if your priorities permit,” Carmody wrote in a letter to Bush. The letter was dated Wednesday, the day of the plane crash that killed 21 people at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport, the first fatal crash in U.S. commercial aviation in more than a year.
Carmody, a Democrat, became acting chairman last year when Bush appointed NTSB Chairman Marion Blakey to head the Federal Aviation Administration. The Senate must confirm a permanent chairman, which is unlikely before Saturday because the Senate is in recess. The president could designate a vice chairman, who would become acting chairman at the end of Carmody’s term.
The safety board investigates every civil aviation accident and major railroad, highway, marine and pipeline accident in the United States. It also issues safety recommendations to prevent future accidents.
“I do not see any alternative in the absence of a presidential designation,” Carmody wrote. She said leadership by committee could be illegal.
Former safety board chairman Jim Hall said he’s confident the White House will appoint someone to run the board.
“You have to have a chairman in place to run the day-to-day operations of the agency,” he said. But if there’s a delay, the board would continue to function until the president had appointed a successor to Carmody, he said.
In a catastrophic accident such as a plane crash, the NTSB chairman decides how much to spend on an investigation, coordinates with the Justice Department if it should involve potential criminal activity, exercises subpoena power and coordinates with safety boards outside the United States.