 As soon as Mary Schiavo learned of the events of September 11, she knew she had to unearth the truth about what had happened----something she knows plenty about. Her dogged pursuit of lapses in aviation safety earned her the nickname, "Scary Mary" during her controversial tenure as inspector general of the U.S. Department of Transportation from 1990 to 1996. Determined to keep the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) accountable to the public, Schiavo, 46, led an investigation into security at the nation's airports in 1992 and 1993. Her employees, armed with guns, knives, grenades and fake bombs, got through 75 percent of the time. At a congressional hearing to address what she'd uncovered, the FAA promised to fix the breaches. But when Schiavo repeated her investigation in 1995 and 1996 there were still significant security lapses. The FAA "went into overdrive to try to get the report classified," Schiavo alleges. "They were clearly waiting for people to die. I prepared for my letter of resignation." Schiavo went on to become a professor of aviation at Ohio State University. She recently left academia to become an attorney at a Los Angeles firm that represents victims of airline disasters----including families of several dozen victims of the terrorist attacks. These relatives, says Schiavo, are not interested in money. "They want to know the truth." And the legal process, she believes, may be the only way to get at the truth of what went wrong on September 11. "If you don't find out how it happened," she says, "then the problem won't be fixed. That's why I speak out."
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