Release #82.a
August 16, 2001

WASHINGTON D.C.—The Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA), has awarded its 2000 Air Safety Award to Cartersville, GA, resident Kenneth Adams, a Delta Airlines captain The award, ALPA’s highest honor for a volunteer in the air safety field, was presented on August 15, 2001, during the Association’s annual Air Safety Forum.

"Capt. Adams is the ideal honoree for the 2000 ALPA’s Air Safety Award," said Capt. Duane Woerth, ALPA’s president. "During his 15-plus years as a dedicated volunteer within ALPA’s air safety structure, he has led, and contributed to a virtual mountain of achievements, including some of our union’s greatest success stories. His influence in improving aviation safety has been far reaching and profound."

Capt. Adams most recently served the Delta pilots’ central air safety chairman (CASC) – the highest air safety volunteer position at an ALPA airline – for two terms, from 1989 to 1993 and from 1999 to June of this year. During those years, he had a tremendous amount of responsibility, working with a pilot group as large and diverse as Delta, with its 9,683 members, flying 549 airplanes to approximately 325 airports in 48 states and 64 countries.

During his tenure as the Delta pilots’ CASC, Capt. Adams built up the volunteer air safety structure at the pilot group to one that is the pride of the union and that has been emulated at several other ALPA properties – particularly at Delta’s code-share partners. He also worked to reach an agreement with company management that gives the Association the final authority to arbitrate solutions for crew rest facilities in the carrier’s entire fleet, including the new Boeing 777s. In addition, as CASC. Capt. Adams used his influence to put an end to potentially unsafe procedures being used at the John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, California – a product of unrealistic noise restrictions.

After the investigation into the 1991 crash of an Atlantic Southeast Embraer EMB-120 Brasilia near Brunswick, GA, Capt. Adams realized that that two levels of safety existed in the U.S. commercial airline industry at that time – with a huge gap between the levels for large and small carriers. His subsequent work and advocacy was part of the impetus behind ALPA’s highly successful "One Level of Safety" campaign.

Capt. Adams has participated in numerous airline accident investigations, and served as the lead pilot investigator of several of the most prominent in recent history, including the crash of SwissAir Flight 111 off the coast of Halifax in Nova Scotia. He is the International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Association’s chief pilot investigator in this ongoing investigation into this crash – now in its third year.

Capt. Adams has been a pilot with Delta for 31 years. His professional flying experience began with the U.S. Navy in 1964. While a Navy officer, he flew 235 combat missions in southeast Asia and received 28 medals, including the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry. Capt. Adams graduated from Miami University in Oxford, OH, with a bachelor’s degree in physics and mathematics. He currently resides with his wife, Loreen, in Cartersville, a suburb of Atlanta.

ALPA is the union representing most commercial airline pilots in North America, and is the industry’s leading safety advocate. It represents 66,000 pilots at 47 carriers in the U.S. and Canada. Visit the ALPA Web site at http://cf.alpa.org.

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ALPA Contacts: John Mazor, Anya Piazza (703) 481-4440