The Federal Aviation Act of 1958 Essay

The federal aviation act came into operation in 1958. The law gave the FAA authority to control and regulate the airspace in the United States of America. There are several factors that led to its enactment in 1958. Before 1958 the law and policies relating to the aviation industry were inadequate and sometimes not even there. This period was full of air accidents and incidents that required an authority to oversee the industry. Firstly for a very long time, the aviation industry was unregulated before the enactment of the Air commerce act of 1926.

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After enactment this law created aeronautic which performed functions such as testing and certification of pilots, giving a clean bill of health on aircraft before flying commercially, and developing sound policies for the market and also enforcing them. It was also tasked with the creation of airways and their maintenance. The most important responsibility of the branch was the investigation of aviation accidents and collisions. The branch changed its name to Bureau of air commerce. In 1938 the civil aeronautics law established a civil aeronautics authority which regulated activities of commercial airplanes.

In 1940 there was the establishment of civil aeronautics board which dealt with air investigations and regulation of the civil aviation industry. Another factor to consider for the enactment of the FAA is the rise in the use of airplanes in the 1950,s. The industry in 1950,s was overcrowded with commercial airplanes thus if left unregulated there would be a lot of safety issues arising ("A Brief History of the FAA", 2017). Thus there was a need for a law to deal with this problem thereby enactment of the federal aviation act of 1958.

Another important factor is that air collisions which resulted in many people loss of lives were becoming an epidemic. In June 1956 flight 178 and flight 2 had a collision where one hundred and twenty-eight people lost their lives. The details of the incident are that it took place in an unregulated airspace. Congress, in turn, passed the airways modernization act which created a board. There are other accidents e.g. collision between a military airplane and a commercial airplane where forty-nine people died and a collision involving capital airlines resulted in 11 deaths. These collisions led to the need to unite military air control and civil air control. This led to the FAA being introduced to the Senate by Warren Magnuson. The Senate passed it July 1958 and the housed passed it August 4th, 1958. It was later signed into law by the president on August 23rd, 1958.

References

A Brief History of the FAA. (2017). Retrieved from https://www.faa.gov/about/history/brief history/Silversmith, J. (2016). "It, Being Dead, Yet Speaketh": The Recodification of the Federal Aviation Act of 1958. Retrieved from https://www.zsrlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/378/2016/04/Aviation_-_Silversmith_-_The_Recodification_of_the_Federal_Aviation_Act_of_1958.pdf