Slack & Davis’ Michael Slack was quoted in two newspaper articles about the recent Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) airplane inspections that resulted in commercial flight interruptions. One article was featured in the Houston Chronicle and one in the Ft. Worth Star Telegram. Full articles and links below.
--
April 10, 2008
Continental steers clear so far
Houston carrier has avoided inspection turmoil
By BILL HENSEL JR.
Houston Chronicle
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/biz/5692011.html
Experts predict that recent flight cancellations by American Airlines and others may lead to additional interruptions as a regulatory probe deepens, but so far Houston-based Continental Airlines has managed to fly above the fray.
The Federal Aviation Administration, which just completed an initial audit of compliance with maintenance and safety orders, is casting a wider net now, aviation consultant Bob Mann said Thursday.
"I anticipate seeing other airlines, other issues," Mann said.
Continental has yet to be singled out in connection with the FAA probe and has said it received a clean bill of health when the first phase ended earlier this month.
"We have been able to operate our full schedule because we are in compliance with safety regulations applicable to our fleet," spokesman Dave Messing said in an e-mail, also noting that Continental doesn't fly Boeing MD-80s, which have caused American to scrub about 2,500 flights over the last three days as it tries to comply with a federal directive.
On Thursday, the MD-80 scrutiny led Fort Worth-based American to cancel more than 900 flights, including most of its schedule out of Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport.
The carrier canceled 570 flights scheduled to take off today, and interruptions were expected to continue Saturday.
'Tens of millions of dollars'
While American CEO Gerard Arpey said he took responsibility for the matter, which he predicted will cost the carrier "tens of millions of dollars" in missed business and room and board provided to stranded customers, he said the inspection was not a safety issue.
"We have fought our way through many difficult circumstances over the years, and we will fight our way through this one," said Arpey.
Midwest Airlines and Alaska Airlines, neither of which serves Houston, also had some cancellations Thursday. Delta Air Lines scrapped a few flights, too.
FAA spokesman Les Dorr said Thursday that if the newer audits do uncover additional safety concerns, the airlines in question will have to deal with them.
Continental said Thursday it was seeing hundreds of American's customers switch onto its jets as they scrambled to make alternative travel plans. Every seat on Continental flights from Houston to Dallas-Fort Worth and Chicago was sold out through the end of the day on Friday, said Messing, who indicated the same held true for flights from its Newark hub.
"All the available space on these planes was taken by people who needed to be rerouted due to the cancellations at American," he said.
Veteran aviation lawyer Mike Slack of Austin said Thursday that the focus could certainly go further than the bundles of wires in the wheel wells on American's MD-80s, where the FAA seems to be concentrating. Slack said there are known problems with wiring in other places, such as behind the cockpit panel, that are harder to reach.
"If wiring is something they are interested in, and you start working back in aircraft, it is going to lead to a lot of downtime and expense," Slack said. "If this ultimately leads to an examination of what are the wiring issues in the commercial airline fleet, folks better be prepared for a shock. Solving that problem is going to be prohibitively expensive."
Arcing electrical charges
In 2006, after Boeing received reports of electrical charges arcing between wires in the wheel wells of MD-80s, the FAA issued an order giving airlines until last month to properly bundle and secure the wires to prevent them from chafing. Rubbing could cause shorts that might lead to fires or even explosions, the agency said.
On Wednesday, Arpey's top lieutenant suggested that American had fallen victim to a suddenly more aggressive FAA. The agency has been under fire since disclosures last month of its lax enforcement of safety rules at Southwest Airlines, which was hit with a record $10.2 million fine over maintenance inspections.
Arpey said Thursday that the FAA "obviously is under their own set of scrutiny and pressure right now" but was only doing its job of "holding airlines to exacting standards."
Aviation consultant Mann said the agency abruptly has gone from "permitting shades of gray in compliance to purely black and white."
Kevin Mitchell of the Business Travel Coalition said Thursday that the root problem is evidence there are systemic defects with both airlines and their regulators.
"That would lead me to guess there will be additional problems found in respect to airworthiness directives," Mitchell said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
--
April 10, 2008
Safety experts say FAA has something to prove after furor over inspections
By BOB COX
Star-Telegram staff writer
http://www.star-telegram.com/business/story/573578.html
The decision to ground hundreds of American Airlines MD-80 planes for more safety inspections and repairs is a sign that the Federal Aviation Administration is out to prove that it is not a toothless watchdog, aviation safety experts said Wednesday.
After embarrassing revelations that officials in the FAA's Irving office allowed Southwest Airlines to skip required safety inspections, the agency wants to show the public and Congress that it is doing its job, they said.
"I think they're pounding the sand for the benefit of the transportation safety committee and [Rep. James] Oberstar," said Michael Slack, an Austin aviation lawyer and Texas A&M aerospace engineering graduate. Oberstar, D-Minn., leads the transportation panel that held a hearing on the FAA last week.
American, rather than pushing back at the FAA, is probably being more compliant: "After Southwest, nobody else wants to get slapped with a $10 million or $15 million fine," Slack said.
The FAA has been reluctant to pressure airlines too hard on making costly inspections and repairs, experts say, especially carriers that are willing to use their political clout.
"There's room to be critical of the FAA," said John Eakin, an aviation safety records researcher in Helotes, who works with lawyers and accident investigators. "Even when they're called out by the NTSB [National Transportation Safety Board] to do something, they take a long time to look at it and sometimes they don't do it."
Eakin, who is a pilot and an FAA-licensed aircraft mechanic, said that, in his examination of maintenance and safety records while investigating crashes, he has found the FAA "to be tolerant to a fault allowing the airlines [and] other operators to do business the way they want."
Jim Helms, who has examined and verified maintenance records for used-aircraft buyers for more than 20 years, said that in his experience American has a poor record for complying with the letter and spirit of FAA airworthiness directives -- mandatory inspection and repair orders.
Helms said he complained to the FAA's Fort Worth office about the need for stricter oversight of American's maintenance performance and record keeping. He said officials told him that every time they tried to get tougher on American, they would quickly hear from the agency's headquarters, telling local inspectors to lighten up.
American spokesman John Hotard said he strongly disagrees with Helms' description of the airline's maintenance compliance efforts.
"We have had plenty of issues for years with the FAA. We've had spirited discussions on certain issues over the years. We certainly have not gotten a pass," Hotard said.
On Monday, the FAA reassigned Thomas Stuckey, the head of flight standards for the agency's Southwest region, after inspectors told Congress he Stuckey hadn't acted on a complaint that a safety supervisor was too lenient.
Experts are mystified about the sudden focus on electrical wiring in the wheel wells of MD-80s. There are no reports of any recent, serious problems.
Boeing first issued a bulletin in July 2005 urging airlines to inspect the wire bundle for the auxiliary hydraulic pump. It said there had been reports of shorted and arcing wires, probably because of wear and abrasion of the insulated coverings. Airlines were told to install new protective covering over the wire bundles. A year later, the FAA ordered the airlines to perform the inspections and repairs within 18 months.
top