Airport administrator: According to the latest figures

The airport administrator's conclusion is that the 1 in 20,000 figure is relatively unreliable compared to the latest figure (1 in 2 million).

Why is the latest figure more reliable than the 1 in 20,000 figure?

• According to the author, the 1 in 20,000 figure is unreliable because it "is based on a partial review of air traffic control tapes."
• The 1 in 2 million figure, on the other hand, is based on a thorough study of the flight reports required of pilots for all commercial flights.
• We can infer that the administrator believes that a partial review of air traffic control tapes would result in a figure that is LESS reliable than a figure derived from a thorough study of the flight reports required of pilots for all commercial flights. In other words, the tapes only look at some flights while the reports look at all flights, so the reports should result in a more reliable figure.

Which one of the following most accurately describes a flaw in the airport administrator's argument?

(A) The author does not imply that building runways closer together will encourage pilots to be more cautious while landing, so (A) can be eliminated.

(B) One figure is based on video tapes while the other figure is based on flight reports created by the pilots. If the pilots put inaccurate information in those flight reports, then a study of those reports would also be inaccurate, regardless of how thorough the study of the reports was. The reports might indicate that only 1 in 2 million flights strayed off course, but perhaps numerous other flights strayed off course and the pilots simply did not record the incidents accurately in the flight reports.

With video tapes, on the other hand, the pilots would have no way to hide incidents of flights straying off course. Thus, statement (B) is evidence that, in contrast to what the author believes, the figure based on the tapes is more reliable than the figure based on the flight reports. (B) looks good.

(C) The author does not question anyone's integrity in the passage, so (C) can be eliminated.

(D) The author does not claim that the information in the tapes is inaccurate. Rather, the author simply implies that a thorough study of flight reports from ALL commercial flights would provide a more reliable figure than a PARTIAL review of air traffic control tapes. In other words, the author contends that the figure based on the flight reports is more reliable because the data from the flight reports is more thorough than the data from the review of the video tapes.

(E) Again, the author does not claim that the information in the tapes is inaccurate. Instead, the author believes the figure based on the reports is more reliable because the reports are submitted for ALL commercial flights while tapes of only SOME flights were reviewed to determine the other figure.

(B) is the best answer.