CNN: Why many air crashes are proving survivable - Laws?

Economics Economics Questions
1

According to this CNN article, planes are more survivable today.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/02/25/turkish.plane.amsterdam.safety/index.html

The only possible explanation they gave was this:

"Daly said that in many previous crashes, fatalities were caused by fire. But in the 1980s many new laws came in, especially in the United States, that brought about vast improvements in the materials used to build aircraft, meaning they did not burn as easily. "

I don’t buy it, and besides, who know what adverse effects such laws had.

Anyone with thoughts on this? This is one of those things that as soon as people read, they tell me: you see, don’t be extreme, some regulation do protect the consumers.

2

The problem is that it assumes aircraft manufacturers don’t already have an incentive in absence of laws to build safer aircraft. This is false. In fact, due to the FAA being essentially a monopolized safety regulator of aircraft, they probably stunt the progress of safety more than a system of competing safety inspectors would. Personally working in the aircraft industry has shown me how cumbersome and bogged down the FAA can be.

3

Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the airline industry see MASSIVE deregulation in the 1980s? Hence the reason why there’s more than two airlines in the US?