Military Airlift

Pursuant to congressional requests to evaluate military commercial charter operations following a December 1985 crash, GAO assessed: (1) the Department of Defense's (DOD) policies and procedures to charter commercial aircraft; (2) DOD and Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) oversight procedures to monitor carrier performance; and (3) a DOD study of passenger airlift policies and procedures. GAO was also asked to obtain data on DOD and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) airport security evaluations and monitor and report on the investigation of the crash.

GAO believes that there is a need for: (1) DOD to strengthen its contracting procedures to ensure that charter airlines and air-taxi operators follow flight quality and safety requirements; (2) DOD to improve its monitoring of charter and air taxi operators; (3) DOD and FAA to improve their communication so that each has access to necessary information; (4) DOD and FAA to coordinate their airport security evaluation programs; and (5) the State Department to encourage MFO to develop better contracting and monitoring procedures that stress flight safety. GAO concurred with the observations made by the DOD group that studied DOD air passenger travel and concluded that the study's recommendations would improve DOD commercial airlift operations.