Smithsonian Institution - Better Care Needed for National Air and Space Museum Aircraft: Ggd-96-9 (Paperback)

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed aircraft restoration at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum (NASM), focusing on: (1) the adequacy of facilities for preserving aircraft; and (2) options to improve NASM aircraft restoration efforts. GAO found that NASM: (1) commits fewer resources to aircraft restoration than it does to its other museum activities; (2) lacks adequate space to properly display or store restored aircraft; (3) must determine how to better preserve its aircraft collection despite its limited financial resources and lack of space; (4) needs to develop criteria for what constitutes historically significant aircraft and consider which aircraft should be kept in its collection; (5) could help preserve its aircraft collection, alleviate its storage capacity problems, and share its collection with the public by using second-party restorations; (6) expansion plans at Dulles Airport could help alleviate storage facility problems, but funding is uncertain and the extension could take years to complete; (7) could reduce short-term costs by limiting the new storage space to the same size as current storage facilities; and (8) does not have a management plan describing how each aircraft will be used in future exhibits, the extent that each aircraft will be restored, and who is responsible for monitoring the condition of each aircraft.