| | |  Travel & Outdoors 
Planes with Maintenance Problems have Flown Anyway
 Gary Stoller - USA Today
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February 02, 2010
| | A jet takes off from Indianapolis in this 2000 file photo. Since 2003, 65,000 U.S. flights with maintenance problems have taken off anyway. (Matt Kryger/Indianapolis Star) | |
Alerted by a brake warning light in the cockpit, the captain on a U.S. airline flight last August warned passengers he was making an emergency landing and called for firetrucks to be standing by.
The trucks weren't needed, it turned out. The Boeing 767-300 jet landed safely, the pilot said in his account to NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System, which allows airline employees to report incidents confidentially and without identifying the airline or the flight.
The pilot reported that he later was told by mechanics that the incident was caused by a landing-gear wheel that was missing a part and had been installed incorrectly.
The passengers on the unidentified international flight were on a jet that should never have left the ground. Improper repair work made it unsafe to fly. It was no isolated incident.
During the past six years, millions of passengers have been on at least 65,000 U.S. airline flights that shouldn't have taken off because planes weren't properly maintained, a six-month USA TODAY investigation has found.
The investigation — which included an analysis of government fines against airlines for maintenance violations and penalty letters sent to them that were obtained through the Freedom of Information Act — reveals that substandard repairs, unqualified mechanics and lax oversight by airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are not unusual.
"Many repairs are not being done or done properly, and too many flights are leaving the ground in what the FAA calls 'unairworthy,' or unsafe, condition," says John Goglia, a former airline mechanic who was a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) member from 1995 to 2004.
Airlines contract about 70% of their maintenance work to repair shops in the USA and abroad, where mistakes can be made by untrained and ill-equipped personnel, the Department of Transportation's inspector general says. Airlines also disregard FAA inspectors' findings to keep planes flying, defer necessary repairs beyond permissible time frames, use unapproved parts and perform their own sloppy maintenance work, according to FAA documents.
Though many maintenance problems go undetected, the FAA levied $28.2 million in fines and proposed fines against 25 U.S. airlines for maintenance violations that occurred during the past six years. In many cases, planes operated for months before the FAA found maintenance deficiencies. In some cases, airlines continued to fly planes after the FAA found deficiencies in them.
The 65,000 flights that took off when they shouldn't have represent a fraction of the 63.8 million flights that all U.S. airlines flew during the past six years. The FAA doesn't always document how many times planes with maintenance problems have flown.
The FAA says it "sets an exceptionally high bar" for the required level of safety for airlines and says the fines indicate that problems were detected and corrected. The airline industry also says its planes are safe and points to millions of incident-free flights.
U.S. airlines "regard safety as their highest responsibility," and "their maintenance programs reflect that commitment to safety," says Elizabeth Merida, a spokeswoman for the Air Transport Association, which represents big U.S. airlines. The ATA says members haven't had a fatal accident "attributable to maintenance" since Jan. 1, 2000.
That year, an Alaska Airlines jet flying from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, to San Francisco, crashed into the Pacific Ocean about 3 miles north of Anacapa Island, Calif., killing all 88 people aboard. The accident was caused by a loss of plane pitch control after threads of a screw assembly on the tail failed, according to the NTSB, which investigates air accidents. Alaska Airlines didn't sufficiently lubricate the assembly, causing excessive thread wear. The FAA had approved extending the time between lubrications, which contributed to the accident, the NTSB said.
A USA TODAY analysis of NTSB data shows that maintenance was "a cause, factor or finding" in 18 other accidents since Jan. 1, 2000. Some were on scheduled flights of airlines that are ATA members, some were on airlines that aren't members. No one was killed or injured in 10 of the accidents; 43 people were killed and 60 injured in the others.
Putting fliers in jeopardy
Last April, the NTSB determined that American Airlines failed to catch mistakes by maintenance workers before an engine on a jet caught fire during takeoff from St. Louis on Sept. 28, 2007. The plane had substantial damage. After an emergency landing, passengers were safely evacuated on the runway.
Thirteen days before the flight, mechanics replaced the engine's air turbine starter valve six times, but none of the replacements solved an engine-start problem, the NTSB said. At the gate prior to the flight, a mechanic used "an unapproved tool" to start the engine, and damaged a component.
In October, the FAA proposed a $3.8 million fine against United Airlines for allegedly operating a Boeing 737 jet "not in airworthy condition" on more than 200 flights Feb. 10-April 28, 2008.
After takeoff from Denver on April 28, pilots noticed low oil pressure, shut down an engine and returned to the airport. United mechanics inspecting the engine found that two towels, instead of required protective caps, had been used to cover openings in the oil sump area when maintenance was done four months earlier, the FAA says.
United immediately reported what it found to the FAA, says Megan McCarthy, the airline's spokeswoman. United "took appropriate and necessary measures" to ensure its maintenance standards are met and "issues like this will not happen in the future," she says.
FAA inspectors have found maintenance problems at many airlines.
A review of hundreds of pages of documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act chronicles repeated instances in the past six years of shoddy maintenance and improper procedures done by ill-trained and ill-equipped workers, even some instances of coverups of bad repairs that put fliers' safety in jeopardy:
•Before a Jan. 16, 2006, flight from El Paso, Continental Airlines contacted a certified repair station, Julie's Aircraft Services, about a possible engine leak on a Boeing 737-500. Julie's assigned three mechanics to assess the situation. They hadn't received training from Continental on engine troubleshooting, had no Continental maintenance manuals to address problems and didn't have the required tools or equipment, the FAA says.
The mechanics opened the cowling of one of the plane's two engines and told pilots to start that engine. The FAA says the engine was run at excessive speed, contrary to Boeing's caution to not go "above idle power with the fan cowls panels open," and that the mechanics didn't maintain required communication with the cockpit. One mechanic was "ingested" into the engine and killed. Continental was fined $45,000.
•In July 2008, the FAA revoked the flying certificate of Alaska-based L.A.B Flying Service after several accidents, incidents and maintenance violations dating to April 2002. The airline flew passengers on planes with missing, loose, corroded and damaged parts, and maintenance personnel put false repair entries into logbooks, according to FAA documents.
In June 2007, an aircraft was destroyed by a fire caused by a leaking exhaust system. Significant engine damage "may have occurred" during the fire, the FAA says, but a year later, L.A.B. installed the damaged engine on another plane. In 2002 and 2003, there were five instances of parts breaking or falling off L.A.B. planes in flight. Since 2004, L.A.B. "has committed an astounding number of maintenance and maintenance-related regulatory violations," the FAA says.
•Shortly after takeoff on Jan. 19, 2004, an American Eagle plane returned to Bangor, Maine, because rudder pedals and the rudder "jammed in the full right rudder position." The FAA, which fined the airline $600,000, found that the airline had "prior knowledge of an aircraft vibration, yet continued to dispatch and operate the aircraft until actual rudder control failure at Bangor." The FAA says American Eagle "failed to employ competent personnel to ensure the highest degree of safety in its operations," and flying the plane "in an unairworthy condition" on 20 flights with a vibration "was careless and endangered the life or property of another."
•The FAA fined Atlantic Southeast Airlines $250,000 for operating a Canadair CL-600 aircraft on 20 flights in May 2005 in "unairworthy condition." The plane earlier had been taken to a West Virginia repair station for "retrofitting of the ejector pump" and installation of a "communication addressing and reporting system," the FAA says.
Knowing that the work "either had not been completed or that the documentation of these tasks had not been completed," Atlantic Southeast nevertheless put the plane back in service on passenger flights.
•On 374 occasions from May 23 to June 23, 2004, JetBlue released jets from its New York and Long Beach, Calif., maintenance facilities without performing required work on their in-flight entertainment systems. The FAA said JetBlue flew passengers with planes in "unairworthy condition" and fined the airline $49,000.
•In October 2006, the FAA fined American Eagle $25,000 after a June 2005 inspection of its facility at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport found "inadequate" aircraft parts, supplies and materials "available for use" for maintenance and alterations. Unidentified items with expired shelf lives were found in cabinets and mechanics' toolboxes.
Seven months after that inspection, the FAA did another inspection at the facility, and again found "inadequate" parts, supplies and materials. Expiration-date stickers had been removed from unidentified items. The FAA fined American Eagle $43,750.
The Department of Transportation's inspector general also has identified maintenance deficiencies during the past nine years.
In November, Inspector General Calvin Scovel told a House subcommittee that more than 100 mechanics working on an unidentified airline's planes at an unidentified repair station didn't have sufficient training and lacked required tools. At other repair stations, the inspector general found untrained mechanics, lack of required tools and unsafe storage of aircraft parts.
Questions about uncertified work
Besides nearly 4,900 repair stations in the USA and abroad, uncertified repair stations and mechanics are doing maintenance work, including engine replacement and other critical repairs.
FAA regulations allow an airline to use uncertified repair facilities and mechanics if a certified mechanic approves the repairs and the airline oversees them. Such facilities aren't required to be in aircraft hangars or to employ supervisors and inspectors to monitor repair work.
In a December 2005 report, the inspector general said it was widely believed that uncertified repair stations performed minor work, but the inspector general found the stations were performing work critical to aircraft safety without the FAA's knowledge.
Use of uncertified facilities can "create safety vulnerabilities," Scovel told the House in November. Of 10 uncertified repair facilities visited by the inspector general, two "were operated by only one mechanic with a truck and basic tools."
Use of uncertified repair facilities — which can be less costly for airlines — was questioned in January 2003 after an Air Midwest plane operating on a US Airways Express flight crashed following takeoff from Charlotte. All 21 aboard were killed.
NTSB investigators said mechanics working for a maintenance contractor incorrectly adjusted a flight-control system that contributed to the accident. The mechanics were certified, but the contractor wasn't, Scovel told a House subcommittee in 2007.
Outsourced repairs on rise
Cost-squeezed airlines also try to save money by farming out an increasing amount of maintenance work to foreign repair stations. The number of FAA-certified foreign repair stations increased from 344 in 1994 to 731 in 2009, according to Scovel.
FAA oversight of such stations is "weak at best," and more than 90% of "people turning the wrenches" at foreign repair stations are not certified mechanics, says Goglia, the former NTSB board member.
Unions representing certified airline mechanics, including the Transport Workers Union of America and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, are angry about the loss of jobs to other countries and the quality of work abroad. In December in Washington, TWU mechanics distributed leaflets to members of Congress pointing out safety and security concerns with foreign repair work. The TWU thinks airlines "are fleeing federal oversight" and questions whether reliance on overseas repair work is "a disaster waiting to happen," says Robert Gless, assistant director of the union's Air Transport Division.
"Just because there's an absence of disaster, it doesn't mean you have a safe circumstance with overseas maintenance facilities," he says. "What does it take — one or two planes to fall out of the sky — to say, 'Why did this happen?' "
The FAA says there's no need to worry about work done abroad.
"Just as aviation safety is in no way compromised by allowing U.S. carriers to fly aircraft made in Europe, in Brazil or in Canada, safety is in no way compromised by allowing other countries' facilities, which perform to our safety standards, to conduct repair and maintenance on our aircraft," Doug Dalbey, an FAA deputy director, told a House subcommittee last November.
Besides maintenance issues, the inspector general's office found "security vulnerabilities" — including susceptibility to sabotage — at airport and off-airport repair stations.
Concerns are so great that since August 2008, Congress has barred the FAA from certifying any new foreign repair station until the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) issues a rule to improve security.
In November, the TSA said a proposed rule was open for comment. Congress has also introduced bills to close regulatory gaps between foreign and domestic repair stations.
Lax oversight 'raises risk'
Shoddy work or failure to do repairs can often go undetected because of inconsistent or ineffective FAA and airline oversight.
In November, Scovel told a House subcommittee that it "may be months or even years" before FAA inspectors do an on-site review of a repair station after it's approved for use by an airline.
FAA inspectors for an unidentified airline inspected only four of the carrier's 15 main maintenance providers during a three-year period. And a major engine repair facility abroad, which worked on 39 of 53 engines repaired for an airline, wasn't visited by FAA inspectors for five years after the facility was certified.
"As a result of FAA's flawed approval and untimely inspection processes, maintenance problems either went undetected or reoccurred," the inspector general said.
Scovel said his office made 23 recommendations to improve FAA oversight of domestic and foreign repair stations during the previous seven years. Sixteen have not been addressed — including "a number" that "are critical."
In a written statement to USA TODAY, the FAA says it has made changes "when appropriate." The agency says it is "confident that proper FAA oversight is being given to domestic and foreign repair stations, and our safety record underscores that point."
In a September 2008 report, the inspector general's office blamed airlines' audits of repair stations for not detecting problems. At one heavy airframe repair station, two airline audits and two FAA inspections "failed to detect significant weaknesses" at the facility.
The problems, which were later discovered by another airline interested in contracting with the repair station, "were so serious" that the facility stopped operating for more than a month, the report says.
FAA documents also reveal poor airline oversight.
In July 2007, the agency fined United $15,000 for putting an unqualified person in charge of its engine overhaul shop in San Francisco "on multiple occasions" from Aug. 30 through Nov. 1, 2004. The person approving work wasn't licensed to sign off on it.
United spokeswoman McCarthy says the airline has changed how it reviews qualifications and certifies supervisors.
"All these departures from the rules," Goglia says, "raise the risk little by little until there's an incident or a crash."
Contributing: Barbara Hansen |
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