The National Transportation Safety Board is celebrating its 50th anniversary this month. It was created April, 1, 1967, initially as part of the new DOT. The agency replaced the CAB Bureau of Safety, which had existed since 1940. However, it wasn’t until April 1, 1975, that the Safety Board became an independent federal agency.
In the five decades since its establishment, it has made more than 14,500 recommendations to improve transportation safety, of which more than 80 percent have been acted upon favorably. Nearly 40 percent of all recommendations and more than 98 percent of all investigations relate to aviation.
Today, the Safety Board investigates, on average, 1,600 aviation accidents and incidents, 22 highway crashes, nine rail accidents, three pipeline or hazardous materials accidents, and 30 maritime accidents each year, and issues more than 280 recommendations.
In terms of helping to dramatically reduce fatal aviation accidents in turbine-powered airplanes, three of the most noteworthy recommendations adopted into law called for development and installation of ground proximity warning systems, traffic alert and avoidance systems and weather detection systems.
