Cry raised for air cargo safety hearings

Cry raised for air cargo safety hearings Members of Florida's congressional delegation are calling for oversight hearings into the safety of the air cargo industry in the wake of an investigative series on air cargo safety in the Miami Herald.
   Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., has called for oversight hearings by the Committee on Government Reform, of which she is a member, according to Wednesday's edition of the paper. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., wants the Senate to urge the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to look at safety standards for air cargo. Nelson is on a Senate panel with oversight of the FAA.
   ”We need to know if there are unsafe practices putting people’s lives at risk that we need to fix,” Nelson said in a statement to the Herald.
   In a three-part series entitled 'Deadly Express' that ran July 9 through July 11 after a nine-month investigation, the paper reported there have been 69 crashes involving air cargo flights between 2000 and 2006. Those crashes resulted in 85 deaths.
   The report also said that there is a double standard in federal oversight of air safety, with strict enforcement for passenger flights but less emphasis on cargo flights.
   The reports describe air cargo as 'the deadliest form of commercial aviation.'