Remarks by Dr. Vern Ellingstad, NTSB

DR. ELLINGSTAD: Thank you, Chairman Hall. I'd like to join Chairman Hall in welcoming you to this symposium, and I'd also like to extend thanks to the International Transportation Safety Association for co-sponsoring this event. Mr. Benoit Bouchard, the Chairman of the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, will bring us greetings from ITSA tomorrow.

Let me just very quickly run over some of the activities that we have planned for today. It's a very busy schedule for the next three days, and we've got a considerable amount of information that we hope to be able to share.

Today, we'll be spending time this morning and extending into the afternoon with a panel of experts who will tell us about Transportation Recording Today, and cover the current status of transportation recording, and that will be followed by a panel this afternoon featuring the Department of Transportation's Administrators as well as representatives from international organizations, ICAO and IMO.

On Tuesday and then, of course, this evening, we're privileged to hear NASA Administrator Dan Goldin. On Tuesday, we'll cover two important topics. One is the pro-active use of recorders, what we can do with recorders for other than strictly safety benefits, and also deal with issues of access to the data, who owns it, and with issues related to privacy.

On Wednesday, we'll discuss the future of transportation recording, what technology brings us to extend this important capability in the foreseeable future, and then we'll conclude on Wednesday at noon with a luncheon speech by FAA Administrator Jane Garvey.

I'd like to call your attention to a couple of other aspects of this symposium that I'm certain that you have run across on your way in to this room. First of all, there is an exhibit room set up in Salons 1 and 2 which features 16 exhibitors and shows off much of the technology that we'll be talking about. The exhibit area will be open during breaks and during the lunch breaks today and Tuesday and, of course, before the symposium starts each day.

There will also be tomorrow afternoon a special display of Eaton Vorad's collision warning system on a truck outside the hotel after the afternoon session on Tuesday.

You'll also have noticed the posters that we have out in the lobby area. There are 16 individuals who have provided information on these posters. We'd ask you to please visit them during breaks in the session. The authors of these posters will be available to discuss their work and answer questions from 4:30 to 5:30 this afternoon and from 8 to 9 p.m. on Tuesday.

Another thing I'd like to call your attention to that I'm sure you didn't get away from the registration table without is the proceedings which consists of papers that were submitted by a great number of authors that are available for our consideration.

I'd also like to point out that we will prepare a transcript of the panel sessions. We will capture the remarks of all of the speakers during these three days, and that information as well as this proceeding will be available on CD after the conference. We'll also make that available on our Web page.

Just in terms of procedures for today, we have a very tight schedule. We have a number of very important speakers, and you'll notice that we have them on a rather short leash. We will, of course, ask the speakers and the moderators to help us maintain our schedule.

Because of this, the tightness of the program, we will confine our questions and answers to the panel sessions at the conclusion of each of the sessions. The panel for the first session will be this afternoon.

If you have questions, you have some index cards in your folders. We will have more of them available. If you will hand those cards to our staff that will circulate, we will bring them up, and the moderators will supply those questions to the panelists during that panel session.

Without further ado, and we're reasonably close to schedule right now, I'd like to introduce Mr. Barry Sweedler, the Director of the Office of Safety Recommendations and Accomplishments, who will chair the first session, and as Chairman Hall had indicated, he's replacing Member George Black, whose mother passed away.