Deborah Hersman was sworn in as the 12th chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board at the end of July, taking over from acting chairman Mark Rosenker. On June 18 President Obama nominated Hersman for the two-year term of chairman and she was confirmed by the Senate on July 24. She was also confirmed as a board member for her second five-year term, which runs through the end of 2013.
During her first term as a board member, Hersman presided over 16 major investigations including several high-profile aviation accidents: the February 2005 crash of the Platinum Jet Challenger 600 at Teterboro, N.J.; the August 2006 crash of a Comair CRJ-100 in Lexington, Ky.; the crash of New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle’s Cirrus SR20 into a Manhattan apartment building in October 2006, as well as the crash of the Global Exec Aviation Learjet 60 in Columbia, S.C., and that of
a Maryland State Police Eurocopter AS 365N3 EMS helicopter in Forestville, Md., both in September 2008.
