US DOT vs FAA aviation safety lapse flap about American Airlines

US Department of Transportation faults FAA for safety-related lapses in supervising American Airlines

The United States Department of Transportation (DOT) has charged the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) with lack of “adequate supervision” which led to an increase in maintenance-related problems at American Airlines between 2005 and 2008. And, the FAA’s laxity may be resulting in similar safety risks at other airlines, too, a report by the inspector-general of the Department of Transportation said.

The report came to the conclusion that lack of sufficient supervision by the Federal Aviation Administration meant that government officials did not conduct the required routine inspections, or track closely aircraft reliability, or make sure that only qualified mechanics did repairs at American Airlines between 2005 and 2008.

The report said the auditors for the inspector-general of the Department of Transportation still harbour “significant concerns” that lapses on the part of the FAA that occurred in the case of American Airlines, based in Fort Worth, Texas, the United States, could be a factor in “potential maintenance weaknesses that go uncorrected” at other airlines. However, the report does not mention the names of those airlines.

The safety-audit report of the Department of Transportation lists at least four “weaknesses” in the Federal Aviation Administration’s supervision programme, which has “potential safety-related implications.”

The first of these is that the number of maintenance-related incidents at American Airlines has risen and that the airline’s systems to monitor and analyse its maintenance programmes failed to find out the maintenance-related issues.

The second “weaknesses” in the FAA’s supervision system vis-à-vis American Airlines is that, from 2004 to the middle of 2008, the number of “open maintenance deferrals” at American Airlines went up by 32% – from an average of 298 a day to an average of 394 a day.

The third lapse listed in the safety-audit report is that American Airlines was not following the procedures mandated for maintenance inspections and the FAA did not address the airline’s “long-standing failure” to comply with those inspections.

The fourth failure on the part of the FAA is that the agency has not yet issued an ‘airworthiness directive’ pertaining to the problems of windshield-heating on American Airlines’ Boeing 757 aircraft. Apart from this, American Airlines has not bothered to implement the directives in the Boeing Company’s service bulletins that alert airlines to windshield-related troubles.

The Federal Aviation Administration told the office of the Department of Transportation’s inspector-general that it has already taken measures to implement many of the recommendations in the report – including relying more on effective computerised tracking systems as well as issuing improved guidance to FAA’s inspectors.

A spokesman of American Airlines said the airline had cooperated fully with the Department of Aviation’s review and that it has already “proactively addressed” the issues pointed out by the safety-audit report. As a part of the remedial measures, American Airlines is using the services of more internal auditors and also reducing the number of planes that operate with deferred maintenance components.

The Federal Aviation Administration has, since 2008, taken as many as 4 enforcement actions against American Airlines and its regional-airline affiliate, American Eagle Airlines, and has proposed penalties totaling over $15 million.

The latest action was on February 17, 2010, with the FAA proposing a civil penalty of $2.9 million against American Eagle Airlines for violating maintenance rules regarding the landing-gear doors of 4 Bombardier regional jets.