Air Traffic Control: Be Careful Out There

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A mechanic at O'Hare found a damaged duct on a DC-9's engine in April and reported to his supervisor that it would pose a fire hazard if the engine overheated. The supervisor nonetheless cleared the aircraft to take off for Pittsburgh. The horrified mechanic called FAA but could not reach an official before the plane left Chicago. In Pittsburgh, FAA grounded the aircraft while the engine was replaced. The pilot had not been warned that he was flying with a potential fire problem.

In the complex world of aviation technology, equipment can and does fail. Still, insists FAA Chief Donald Engen, "any accident, when you dig in, always comes back to human beings. Accidents just don't happen -- they are caused." Airlines need a skilled force of mechanics and technicians to maintain their incredibly complex aircraft. A Boeing 747, for example, contains 4.5 million removable parts, 135 miles of electrical wires and more than a mile of hydraulic tubing. The major airlines are spending as much as or more than before on maintenance of their fleets. But to deal with any carrier that lacks the will or money to meet the Government's stiff standards, FAA must have enough inspectors to scare the corner cutters and punish the violators. Yet while the volume of traffic has exploded, the Reagan Administration's early budget cutting produced a reduction in the number of FAA inspectors from 1,748 to 1,494. Only in the past three years has the force been rebuilt to its present 1,813 inspectors.

NTSB Chairman Burnett contends, furthermore, that FAA inspectors too often develop a cozy relationship with the airlines they are assigned to monitor. Inspectors and airlines, says Burnett, go through a "choreographed dance." One example: Eastern had a string of problems with missing O rings on engines in its L-1011 jumbos that caused seven forced landings. At a hearing on the problem, Burnett asked the top FAA inspector watching Eastern whether he ever checked the airline's maintenance procedures. No, said the inspector, but he had discussed the problem with Eastern's vice president for maintenance. Burnett's acid response: "Vice presidents don't put on O rings."

The Eastern violations became so numerous because each flight with a claimed maintenance problem counts separately. One Eastern plane flew five years before the airline repaired a landing-gear-assembly link that had been the subject of an FAA warning. Only when the gear failed on a landing at Norfolk, Va., was a fix made. FAA also cited Eastern for placing tape over a 4-in. crack in the leading edge of a horizontal stabilizer and making 156 flights in that condition. Most of the violations, however, appear to have involved the failure to document procedures that differed from standard practice, although not necessarily compromising safety.

Pinched airlines tend to defer repairs on items that do not require immediate grounding of a plane. One pilot admitted that he flew his jet even though in his cockpit 14 red tags were hanging from parts on which needed maintenance work had been deferred. While this may be legal, John Galipault of the Aviation Safety Institute insists that one airline assigns mechanics to fly in what repairmen call "hangar queens," airplanes that develop frequent problems. When a minor ailment arises, the flying mechanic "signs off" on the paperwork needed to permit the plane to keep operating, even though no repair is done.