Terror at zero feet.

It was nearly eleven years ago that planeloads of Northwest Airlines passengers were left stranded on the tarmac for as long as nine hours at the Detroit airport. In 2006, another planeload, this time of American Airlines passengers, found itself marooned at the Austin, Texas, airport for more than nine hours. In 2007, JetBlue passengers were left alone on their plane for eleven hours during an ice storm.

"Through July this year," reports Scott McCartney of the Wall Street Journal, "777 flights were stuck sitting for three hours or more."

So what has the FAA done about the problem? The answer is nothing. In late September of this year, there was a conference to discuss possible solutions to the problem. Nothing better illustrates the spinelessness of the FAA.

But if you want another example, consider the recent crash of a private plane and a helicopter over the Hudson River. There have been scores of near misses in recent years in the airspace surrounding Manhattan. But the only action taken by the FAA was to limit flights over the East River, and that step was taken only after a private plane smashed into an Upper East Side apartment building.

The problem with the Federal Aviation Administration, which I pray Obama and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood will confront, is that it constantly caves before pressure from the airlines and the private pilots because of their influence over the congressional committees that oversee it and provide its funding. The media must also play a role in exposing the danger in public safety by this three-corner relationship between the lobbyists, Congress, and FAA bureaucrats.

Charles Peters is the founding editor of the Washington Monthly.