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FAA faulted for laxness on maintenance outsourcing

WASHINGTON - Nine U.S. airlines outsourced more than 70 percent of their major aircraft maintenance last year, and federal aviation officials' oversight of repair facilities is lagging, according to a government report.

One-fourth of the outsourced maintenance is being handled by contractors overseas.

The Transportation Department's inspector general said the outsourcing, which has more than doubled in four years, was of concern because the Federal Aviation Administration has failed to closely track how much maintenance is farmed out and where it is performed.

Although the FAA has taken steps to improve, "the agency still faces challenges in determining where the most critical maintenance occurs and ensuring sufficient oversight," investigators said in the report issued this week.

In their effort to lower costs, the report said, airlines continue to shift their heavy airframe maintenance from their own in-house mechanics and engineers to hundreds of repair companies in the United States, Canada, Mexico and countries in Central America and Asia.

Nine major airlines examined by the inspector general outsourced 71 percent of their heavy air frame maintenance — repairs and servicing to an aircraft's body, wings and tail — in 2007, up from 34 percent in 2003. More than a quarter of that maintenance — 27 percent — was performed at foreign repair facilities.

The airlines examined in the report were AirTran Airways, Alaska Airlines, America West Airlines, Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue Airways, Northwest Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and United Airlines. American Airlines, the nation's largest domestic carrier, was not included, the inspector general said, because it handles most maintenance in-house.

The FAA relies heavily on the airlines — and the repair facilities themselves — to make sure outsourced repairs meet the air safety standards and requirements of the individual airlines.

FAA requires each repair station to undergo a government inspection at least once a year, FAA spokesman Les Dorr said. The report says those inspections often are not being conducted by agency inspectors most familiar with standards and requirements of the airline whose planes are being repaired.

As much as five years lapsed between visits to some major maintenance facilities by inspectors assigned to individual airlines. Inspectors not assigned to a specific airline may not be familiar with the special maintenance requirements of that airline's planes, which are often customized.

The report cited a foreign facility, which repairs engines for an unidentified airline, that had not been inspected by an FAA inspector assigned to that airline in five years, a period in which the facility had repaired 39 of the air carrier's engines.

The report recommends FAA require airlines to provide more complete information on the extent and location of outsourced repairs, ensure air carriers and repair stations are better able to spot and correct problems, and improve the documentation of inspection results.

The FAA agreed it needs to do more. "We actually concur with all the inspector general's recommendations," Dorr said. "We have procedures in place that already address some of the recommendations, and we have some projects in progress that address others."

One safety expert, however, said the report underscores that FAA still has a long way to go toward resolving the outsourcing issue, which has been source of controversy for the agency for several years.

"What this report tells me is there is still a big problem with oversight — the FAA is not verifying that the oversight being provided by the air carriers is doing the job it's supposed to," said John Goglia, a former member of the National Transportation Safety Board.

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Collision risk high on U.S. airport runways: safety expert

The rate of close calls on airport runways in the United States is up over last year and the risk of a collision is high, a U.S. government investigator said Thursday.

Gerald Dillingham, the General Accountability Office's top expert on aviation safety, told a House of Representatives panel that there were 24 of the most serious kinds of runway incursions — defined as an event in which any aircraft, vehicle or person intrudes in space reserved for takeoff or landing — in fiscal 2008. Download gao_rw_incursions_092508_d081169t1.pdf

That's the same number of serious incursions as last year. But since air travel and airport operations have declined this year, the rate of serious incidents — measured by number of incidents per one million takeoffs and landings — has increased about 10 per cent, Dillingham said.

Both the number and rate of all types of runway incursions, ranging from near collisions to minor incidents in which there was no threat to safety, also are up, he said.

"We all agree … that [the Federal Aviation Administration] has given a higher priority to runway safety," including following several GAO recommendations, Dillingham said. "Despite these actions the risk of runway collisions is still high."

Serious incidents down from high of 53 in 2001
FAA Chief Operating Officer Hank Krakowski said the agency has made "solid progress" this year. He noted that the 24 serious incidents in 2007 were down from a high of 53 incidents in 2001.

FAA: Two controllers not fully certified

Pair was unsupervised in tower when two planes nearly collided, top official testifies.
By Josh Drobnyk | Call Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - A top official at the Federal Aviation Administration told lawmakers Thursday he's concerned that two relatively inexperienced air traffic controllers were alone on duty in the tower -- while other controllers were on break -- when two planes narrowly missed colliding last week at Lehigh Valley International Airport.

A regional jet carrying 39 passengers had to swerve on takeoff last Friday night to avoid a small plane that was taxiing on the runway. They missed one another by about 10 feet.

Testifying before a U.S. House aviation panel, Hank Krakowski, chief operating officer of the FAA's Air Traffic Organization, said neither of the two controllers in the LVIA tower was fully certified. Of the six other controllers on duty, three were on break and the others were handling radar.

Krakowski said the controller who cleared the Chicago-bound United Express flight for take-off completed his training a month ago, but has been decertified and must undergo more training, as is normal procedure after a near-collision. The controller in charge at the time had been at LVIA for 10 months and had five years of experience.

Though neither was fully certified to handle every controller position, both had the proper training to handle traffic, Krakowski said.

FAA Told to Audit Airline Safety Data for Accuracy

By Sholnn Freeman
Washington Post Staff Writer
The Federal Aviation Administration should audit information it receives from airlines on safety and maintenance issues to ensure its accuracy, a panel of aviation safety experts said yesterday.

Transportation Secretary Mary Peters asked an outside panel earlier this year to review FAA safety policies in the wake of blistering criticism from Congress and the Transportation Department's inspector general that the FAA had grown too cozy with air carriers. The FAA relies heavily on self-reported data from airlines to spot trends that could lead to mechanical failures or plane crashes.

The criticism stemmed from safety lapses in the past two years by American Airlines and Southwest Airlines. The government fined Southwest $10.2 million for flying 46 Boeing 747s that had not been checked for fuselage cracks.

Panel members said they supported the FAA's strategy of working closely with airlines on maintenance and safety issues, citing the approach as integral to the nation's aviation safety system.

Panel member William O. McCabe, a former aviation executive at DuPont, said the FAA had to focus on "leading indicators" by sifting through data. He called the system "looking for ugly."

When a Tragedy Becomes a Crime: Prosecutors Probe Air Disasters

By DANIEL MICHAELS
Wall Street Journal
As investigators search for clues to the crash of Spanair SA Flight 5022 in Madrid last month, families of the 153 victims demand to know who is to blame. Another critical question: whether that will be determined in civil or criminal court.

For six decades, aviation regulators have sought the causes behind and responsibility for plane accidents. Victims' families have sued for damages with civil suits.

Lately, however, public prosecutors are seeking criminal accountability for mistakes that lead to air disasters, raising a thorny legal and moral question: When does human error become a crime?

"It's a Nobel Prize question, figuring out how to coordinate civil and criminal law enforcement," says Harvard Law School professor David Rosenberg.

While it isn't yet clear whether the Spanair crash will prompt criminal charges, several air accidents in Europe this decade have. One of the latest cases stems from the Air France Concorde crash in 2000 that killed 113 people. (That was before the carrier became Air France-KLM SA.) French prosecutors have charged five people and Continental Airlines Inc. with voluntary manslaughter. Among the defendants are three engineers who designed and certified the supersonic plane more than 30 years earlier. Continental and two of its employees are included because a piece of metal that crash investigators believe dropped from one of its planes is suspected of initiating the crash. All the defendants deny the charges.

National justice systems draw the line between civil and criminal cases differently. The U.S. has a range of civil penalties -- such as fines and punitive damages against individuals and companies -- that don't exist in many European legal codes, says Anthony Sebok, a professor at New York's Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.

In general, countries try to set a high bar for pressing criminal charges. The U.S. usually demands evidence of reckless behavior or gross negligence. In the wake of a 2003 Staten Island ferry crash that killed 11 people, for example, federal prosecutors won prison sentences for the captain, who had passed out on painkillers, and his boss, for failing to enforce rules requiring two pilots in the wheelhouse.

FAA mandates engine fastener check MD-90s

The US FAA has issued a final airworthiness directive (AD) calling for checks of the aft left and right engine mount support fittings on MD-90-30 aircraft after receiving reports of "loose, cracked or missing fasteners" on "several" aircraft.

The agency says the faulty conditions, found on MD-90s that had accumulated between 18.767 and 25,400 total flight hours and between 15,841 and 27,000 flight cycles, could ultimately lead to separation of the support fitting from the pylon, which could then result in separation of the engine from the airplane.

According to Flight's ACAS database, there are 15 US-registered MD-90-30s, all belonging to Delta Air Lines.

Inspections, which must be carried out within 703 flight cycles after 24 September effective date of the AD, include visual assessment of the fasteners, a gap check for certain washers and fasteners and a torque test of fastener nuts, solutions called out in a 1 August service bulletin issued by Boeing.

The FAA says the AD is to be a considered an interim "until a final action is identified." Delta was not immediately available for comment.

Source: Air Transport Intelligence news

FAA moves to improve safety oversight

By Mary Mosquera
FCW.COM
The Federal Aviation Administration said it has made progress in systems and processes that would improve safety oversight after gaps in compliance were revealed in April. Robert Sturgell, FAA acting administrator, reported on efforts to fix the problems in a release dated Sept. 5.

The Transportation Department’s inspector general said in April that the FAA had developed too close a relationship with Southwest Airlines, which led to a breakdown in safety oversight.

The FAA has depended on airlines to report problems under a program that encourages voluntary reporting of airworthiness problems. The closeness of the relationship produced weaknesses in FAA’s national program for risk-based oversight, said Calvin Scovel III, Transportation’s inspector general.

Southwest continued to fly aircraft that had not been safety-inspected and which later were found to have fuselage cracks, according to the IG’s findings. When the airline notified FAA’s principal maintenance inspector, he did not ground the affected planes. Later, Southwest formally admitted the safety violation through a voluntary self-disclosure program and was fined, Scovel said.

The IG also said the FAA failed to protect from retaliation the employees who reported safety issues and to ensure that the airlines completed corrective actions.

Wing failure focus of FAA crash probe

BY RAY HAGAR
RGJ.com

An investigation into Saturday's fatal crash of a pilot practicing in a home-built aircraft for the Reno National Championship Air Races will focus on why the wings came off, a federal official said Sunday.

Formula One racer Erica Simpson, 32, of Phillipsburg, N.J., was killed about 9 a.m. while preparing for her second year of competition at Reno Stead Airport.

"She went into a roll. She was demonstrating a roll, and the wings came off," Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said. "That is what the investigation will center on."

Simpson, a commercial pilot raised in Port Wing, Wis., competed in the biplane class in 2006. She was flying a single-engine Cassult IIIM on Saturday.

Three pilots were killed in competition during last year's air races. There have been 19 fatalities in the 45-year history of the event.

The danger will prompt FAA officials to take extra precautions before the races begin Wednesday.

FAA to Get High Marks in Report - Safety Review Gives A Boost to Agency With Many Critics

By CHRISTOPHER CONKEY and ANDY PASZTOR
Wall Street Journal
WASHINGTON -- An independent review team is expected to laud the Federal Aviation Administration's approach to ensuring airline safety, a big boost for an agency criticized after a string of oversight lapses.

But the FAA still confronts several challenges, including how to get airlines to fully comply with its safety directives. The agency said Friday that it is investigating 17 new cases of noncompliance among 11 U.S. carriers. Overall, the agency is investigating about 24 instances of maintenance slipups stemming from about 5,600 reviews of safety compliance this year.

In the most controversial case, Southwest Airlines Co. is contesting a $10.2 million penalty levied by the FAA after the airline operated flights using jets that were overdue for safety inspections. Multiple instances of noncompliance by AMR Corp.'s American Airlines also are under investigation, including wiring slipups that led to thousands of flight cancellations in April. The agency may propose a significantly larger penalty against American than the one pending against Southwest, according to people familiar with the matter.

An American spokesman said "nobody has told us of the proposed dollar amount" for a possible fine. "It's very speculative at this point," he said.

The report from the independent board of safety experts appointed by Transportation Secretary Mary Peters is due Wednesday. It is expected to give the FAA high marks for its safety-enforcement efforts, and generally support the trend toward more voluntary compliance and working in partnership with airlines, according to people familiar with the details. There will be some recommendations to change existing programs, but the thrust of the findings will largely vindicate the agency's approach, management and independence, according to these people.

FAA: US Airlines Comply With ADs 98 Percent Of Time

And They're Working On That Other Two Percent
The results are in following an FAA audit of US airline compliance with Airworthiness Directives, announced in April... and the agency says the results are encouraging.

Acting Administrator Robert Sturgell said Friday FAA inspectors found an overall compliance rate of 98 percent in more than 5,600 audits of Airworthiness Directives (ADs) at US air carriers. In the remaining two percent of the audits, the carriers resolved the issues of noncompliance before the airplanes flew again.

"This audit gives us confidence that, overall, the system is safe and in almost every instance the airlines are complying with our safety directives," Sturgell said.

As ANN reported, the agency's reinvigorated pursuit of airline safety came after two inspectors blew the whistle on the too-friendly relationship between FAA officials tasked to oversee maintenance compliance at Southwest Airlines, and that carrier's management. Minnesota Congressman James Oberstar, who has spearheaded Congressional hearings on the matter, termed that relationship "a culture of coziness," which resulted in FAA inspectors allowing Southwest to skirt mandatory fuselage fatigue inspections on its older Boeing 737 models.