John “Jack” Enders, a lifelong aviation enthusiast who led Flight Safety Foundation in the 1980s and early 1990s and held leadership positions with the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and a number of other aerospace operations, died Nov. 25. He was 94.
Enders was president, CEO and vice chairman of the FSF Board of Governors from 1980 until 1993, a period during which he was a key participant in efforts to foster international cooperation in advancing aviation safety improvements. Some of those efforts involved building a relationship between the Foundation and its Soviet (and later, Russian) counterpart, Flight Safety Foundation International, based in Moscow. His relationship with the Russian organization, of which he was honorary president and, for a time, a member of the Board of Directors, continued until 2019.
“John Enders was a relentless advocate for international cooperation in the sharing of aviation safety information,” Dr. Hassan Shahidi, the Foundation’s current president and CEO, said.
Enders was vice chairman of the Foundation when he authored an article in the FSF Flight Safety Digest in which he discussed the potential benefits of flight data analysis. In that 1992 article, he wrote that the advent of “sophisticated flight data recording systems now make it possible to gather vital information that can be analyzed and used to manage risk and enhance safety.”
He concluded that the sharing of safety information, “not only within a particular discipline but also between disciplines, becomes an essential element of feedback. In this way, subtleties of risk control can be exploited for the public good.”
After his departure from the Foundation, Enders was president of Enders Associates, a consulting firm that offered safety advice to airlines and government aviation oversight agencies. He also has been a long-time member of the Board of Trustees of Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology.
Earlier in his career, he served on a number of safety committees at the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, NASA, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and industry groups that dealt with human factors, air traffic control and navigation, weather research, engine rotor burst containment, and research into wake vortices and turbulence.
He spent 15 years as head of aviation safety research at NASA and held other positions at NASA and the FAA.
A native of Sydney, Ohio, U.S., and a 1953 mechanical engineering graduate of Case Institute of Technology, Enders’ first jobs were as an aeronautical research scientist and research test pilot for the U.S. National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), precursor to NASA, and as a pilot and research engineer for the U.S. Air Force. As a NACA research test pilot, he conducted flights over Lake Erie to study aircraft icing conditions by allowing ice to form on aircraft surfaces; the resulting data aided in the development of aircraft icing protection standards adopted in the 1950s.
Enders’ death came six weeks after that of his successor as Flight Safety Foundation president and CEO, Sir Stuart Matthews.
