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Flight Safety Foundation Jerry Lederer Aviation Safety Library, 1910-2010

MS-016

Historical Note

The Jerry Lederer Aviation Safety Library was established by the Flight Safety Foundation in 1987 in recognition of Jerry Lederer's life-long devotion to and leadership in improving flight safety.

Jerome "Jerry" Lederer organized the Flight Safety Foundation in 1947 and served as the Foundation's Technical Director until 1967. Lederer began his career in the 1920s as an aeronautical engineer for the U.S. Air Mail Service before becoming chief engineer for a pioneer aviation insurance underwriter. In 1940, he was invited to become the first Director of the Safety Bureau for the Civil Aeronautics Board. Following war-related work, he returned to the insurance industry, until interest in expanding the work he had been doing disseminating safety information led to the establishment of the Flight Safety Foundation. Following his retirement from the Foundation in 1967, Lederer became the Director of NASA's Office of Manned Space Flight Safety and subsequently was appointed Director of Safety (1970-1972) for all of NASA.

The Flight Safety Foundation is an international non-profit organization whose sole purpose is to provide impartial, independent, expert safety guidance and resources for the aviation and aerospace industry. The Foundation works to identify global safety issues, set priorities, and serve as a catalyst to address the issues through data collection, information dissemination, education, and advocacy.

In 2010, while planning for a move to a new headquarters location, the Foundation decided that transferring the Jerry Lederer Aviation Safety Library to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University would allow the Foundation to focus on its current activities while ensuring that the resources of the library would continue to be available to researchers into the future. Since 2011, the FSF Lederer Library has been part of the Aviation Safety and Security Archives on Embry-Riddle's Prescott, Arizona, campus.

Scope and Content

The Flight Safety Foundation Jerry Lederer Aviation Safety Library is comprised of three distinct sub-collections:

The Jerome Lederer Papers document the life and career of the "father of aviation safety." The Lederer Papers span 1910 to 2005.

Flight Safety Foundation records and publications document the development of the Foundation and its work to improve global aviation safety. Included in the Foundation records are records of the research agency AvCIR/AvSER (Aviation Crash Injury Research, later renamed Aviation Safety and Engineering Research). The Flight Safety Foundation records span 1947 to 2006.

The final sub-collection is the JLASL ("the Library"), which includes an extensive collection of books and reports on aviation safety topics, as well as accident reports and a small number of aircraft and training manuals. Many of these books have been catalogued and may be searched in the Hazy Library catalog.

Restrictions

Conditions Governing Access

Processing of the collection is ongoing. Please contact the archives for information about access.

Related Material

The Flight Safety Foundation [Lederer] Collection (ID: XXXX-0410) at the National Air and Space Museum, Archives Department, contains records from Lederer's tenure with the Foundation as well as records related to Lederer's work in the aviation insurance industry, particularly with Aero Insurance Underwriters.

Many of the books and reports have been removed to the Archives book collection and are listed in the Hazy Library catalog.

Controlled Access Terms

Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

[Item title or description]. Flight Safety Foundation Jerry Lederer Aviation Safety Library (MS-016). Aviation Safety and Security Archives, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Prescott, Arizona.

Acquisition Information

Received from the Flight Safety Foundation in January 2011. Archives accession number 2011.001.