The sad history of NAOMS

Given the momentum that various NextGen-related projects are enjoying at the moment, it’s somewhat sobering to be reminded of the sad fate of a much smaller, but nonetheless very promising initiative from the past. NAOMS, the National Aviation Operations Monitoring Service, was an attempt to improve safety by surveying front-line aviation professionals industrywide. Launched in 1997 and killed in 2004, the House Science and Technology Committee says the program died “due to changing priorities at NASA, budget cuts in the aeronautics program and hostility from FAA.”
Now, the GAO has released a report on the project and has laid out a potential roadmap for future initiatives of this sort. A summary courtesy of the Science and Technology Committee, with critical comments by Reps. Gordon, Miller, and Costello, can be found here.

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