A victory for Flight 3407 families: New rules to fight pilot fatigue

Flight 3407 families and friends light candles in memory of those they lost. 

Thanks in large part to the hard work and persistence of the family members of the victims of Flight 3407, new rules will go into effect to ensure that cockpit crews on regional airlines will be better rested to promote a safer flying environment. Beverly Eckert's sisters Karen Eckert and Susan Bourque were among these citizen-advocates, who made frequent trips to Washington in order to push for airline safety.

The crash of Continental Flight 3407 and its aftermath is a significant local story in Buffalo and has received extensive coverage in the Buffalo News. In the paper's account of the latest episode, Bourque is quoted as saying that the new rules "are much more rigorous than the current rules." She added that the rules would contribute to the efforts on the part of family members to ensure that regional airlines are held to the same safety standards as are the national carriers.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood praised the work of the family members, saying they turned their "unimaginable heartbreak... into a powerful commitment to save the lives of others." He added: "They pushed us to make progress, the progress we're making today. This rule really should be named in honor of the families" and the Flight 3407 victims.


While this measure is very significant, safety advocates note there is more to be done. Here's a quote from the coverage on the "Frontline" program's portion of the Public Broadcasting Service web site, which has done in-depth reporting on the crash of Flight 3407 and the struggle for safer regional airlines.

“Today marks a very important day in pilot safety,” said Congresswoman Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), whose district includes Buffalo and who has been pushing the FAA to implement the new rules. “Finally, guidance has been provided by the FAA that will help assure the American public that when they step into a plane, their pilot is well-rested. … While I’m pleased we have a final rule on pilot fatigue, we know from the findings of the National Transportation Safety Board, that it was not the only factor contributing to the tragic crash in Clarence two years ago. There must be more done to address pilot training, especially on techniques as basic as how to fly in ice when landing in Buffalo.”

Here is some more the press coverage:

NPR.com

cnn.com

huffingtonpost.com

foxnews.com

Businessweek.com

Reuters.com

EmpireStateNews.net

msnbc.com

washingtonpost.com

latimes.com

cbsnews.com

Working on the working title..

I love the visual arts as well as the literary ones. So I cannot resist dabbling in the craft of book jacket design for the first time in my career. Here's my latest version of the book jacket for No  Truer Hearts, which incorporates one of my favorite photos of Beverly (by Associate Press photographer Douglas Healey, taken in Beverly's Stamford home on May 24, 2002). There is a universe of emotion in those sky-blue eyes. Her face is slightly drawn and thin, from months of mourning, pain, anger and stress. But I still love her complex expression, at once loving, mournful, hopeful and strong. And she is hugging Sean, as she did so often when he was alive. If a photo is all that remains of a loved one, or a watch, a shirt, or a lock of hair, we will hold on to the precious relic in a tender way, hoping to receive through our fingertips some of the living presence that once had contact with the same object.

In addition to the work I've done on these visual elements, I have also changed the working sub-title of the book, removing the "story of love, loss and 9/11 reform," because it seemed redundant in the context of the photo, and sleep-inducing (for most people) with the word "reform." It was indeed a journey that Beverly took during the too-brief and dramatic course of her life. She passed through the hell of 9/11, accomplished great things with the help of her colleagues and allies, and now she is in the "beyond"...

'Rubble': A New Book About the 9/11 Families

When I first learned last year that journalist Bob Kemper was writing a book about 9/11 family members, I was slightly apprehensive. After all, in the world of book publishing, what new author wants competition? But after reading Rubble: How the 9/11 Families Rebuilt Their Lives and Inspired America, my apprehension evaporated. Kemper's book and mine are quite different. One difference is that No Truer Hearts is a biography of one 9/11 family member, while Rubble deals mainly with the work of the Family Steering Committee of the 9/11 Commission. Another thing that sets our books apart is the viewpoint and sources. I'll be presenting Beverly's work (along with that of her colleagues on the FSC) from the inside, often through her own eyes, using her own words. Rubble is based mainly on published sources, with the occasional interview with a handful of family members. There is not much information in this book that cannot be gleaned from other sources, so there are none of the illuminating and dramatic revelations that my book will have. But the utility of Kemper's book is in the way it has pulled together various strands of the family member story in a brief and readable form. For a quick overview of the 9/11 attacks, the creation of the 9/11 Commission, and the political wrangling that resulted, with the family members coming out victorious, this is the book for you.

For a 9/11 family member book that takes the reader on a more personal, detailed and emotional journey, readers will just have to wait a little bit longer.

:-)

After the terror of 9/11, "Peace on Earth" was a calling for Beverly Eckert, not just a greeting card phrase

Peace does not just happen. It takes hard work. Whether it is the calm and contentment within each human soul, or the state of good relations among the countries of the world, peace does not just happen.

After 9/11, Beverly Eckert thought deeply about what kind of person she wanted to be, and what kind of world she wanted to live in. And despite the horrific violence and hate that touched her life in the deepest and most painful way, taking from her the man she loved, Beverly took the path of peace, of forgiveness, of tolerance. True, she worked tirelessly on the political arena to make sure the terrible losses of 9/11 would never be visited upon Americans again. But she also decided that in the long term we must all find a way to solve our larger problems without the use of force. So she joined September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows.

I'll discuss her work with this group in my book, of course, but I thought it appropriate that I mention Beverly's calling as peacemaker during this season in which peace is especially celebrated. On a regular basis I look online to see if there's anything new to be found about Beverly, whether an article, an anecdote, or a photo. This morning I spent some time on the Peaceful Tomorrow's web site because I discovered a page devoted to Beverly's participation in the organization. There was no information there that was new to me, but there were some wonderful photos I had not seen before. Beverly is smiling in each one, happy in the company of other 9/11 family members who decided that the only answer to hatred and violence is peace, justice and love.

PBS's Frontline program on the crash of Flight 3407 re-broadcast

"Flying Cheap" aired on PBS stations in February 2010, a year after the crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407, in which Beverly Eckert and 50 others perished. The program illustrated why changes were needed in the way the pilots and crew of regional airlines were trained, paid and scheduled for work to ensure proper rest. Members of Congress and family members of those lost, including Karen Eckert and Susan Bourque, two of Beverly Eckert's sisters, pushed hard to pass legislation that would make flying safer, but opposition from the airlines, based on their bottom lines, has stalled some reforms.

The program aired again yesterday, and provides an opportunity to reflect with sadness on this failure of businesses and government to do the right thing. Too often, the ways of commerce and politics in the United States prevent this. Corporations with deep pockets and well-connected lobbyists in this case thwarted the will of the people and treated their safety, their very lives, as just a line on their ledger sheets.

The story of Beverly's last flight home will be a thread running through No Truer Hearts. It was a flight that had a tragic end, and should have taught those in positions of power that changes were needed to make flying on regional airlines safer. Let's hope it does not take another year to learn those costly lessons.

Graham promises thinly veiled new info on Saudi involvement in 9/11 in his new novel

Former Sen. Bob Graham was a keen observer of intelligence and national security matters during and after his tenure on the Hill. (He was the powerful and influential chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.) After leaving the Senate, Graham chaired the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism. Beverly Eckert and other 9/11 family members, in fact, were working with Graham to support the commission's work, which was concluded in February 2010, a year after Beverly's death.

Today comes news of Graham's new novel, Keys to the Kingdom on the gossip page of the Washington Post, with a titillating tease from the author. Graham told the Post that he decided to write the book because in a novel he could talk about the politically sensitive issue of Saudi Arabia's role in the Sept. 11 attacks. “There was some things I wanted to say that I didn’t think I could do in nonfiction,” he told the Post. He added that the report on the congressional inquiry into the 9/11 attacks was “heavily censored," and that his book provides “some slightly closeted real information that I think will be educational.”

The congressional report's title is "Join Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001," and represents the work of the House and Senate intelligence committees. It was the first official examination of 9/11, and the report was released in December 2002, with a section dealing with possible foreign financing of the hijackers heavily redacted. There was a controversy at the time over releasing this censored portion, which was widely acknowledge to deal with Saudi Arabia. It will be interesting to see what tidbits Graham has chosen to reveal, and whether these revelations will make a splash.

Voices of September 11th holds gala in NYC

One of the first things that Beverly Eckert did after 9/11 was to establish a group to share information with other family members, and to provide them with support. She was joined in the endeavor by Mary Fetchet, of New Canaan, Connecticut, who had lost her son, Brad, in the World Trade Center. Thus was born Voices of September 11th. On June 1, the group held a gala reception and silent auction to raise money for its 9/11 Living Memorial Project.

Held at Pier Sixty, the event was emceed by NBC's Brian Williams, who is a neighbor of Fetchet's. The keynote speaker was Rudolph Guiliani, the city's mayor on that horrific day ten years ago. Some details of the evening appear in an article by Kate King of the Stamford Advocate.