Penalty box

More than $1 million in penalties for safety shortcomings have been proposed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). A fine of $170,000 was levied against American Airlines [AMR] and a whopping $1 million was announced against regional subsidiary American Eagle Airlines [AMR].

The six-figure fine against American Airlines was for improper maintenance. The case involved a fuel imbalance reading on an MD-80 that was noticed on the aircraft's first flight after maintenance of the airplane's fuel indicating system. The crew declared an emergency and returned to Raleigh-Durham airport. The FAA charged that American's maintenance personnel did not perform wing fuel imbalance checks after this emergency return to field, and the airplane was operated for 88 additional flights before the required checks were done. The fine works out to a penalty of nearly $2,000 per flight.

A whopping seven figure penalty was proposed against American Eagle for operating nine Saab 340B twin-turboprop aircraft on 514 flights when they were not in compliance with the company's oil consumption monitoring program (operations specifications required daily engine oil level checks). As a consequence, 11 takeoffs were aborted as a result of low oil pressure indications.

At our invitation, two aviation maintenance experts were asked to comment on these enforcement actions. One said the missed "check" on the MD-80 was most likely an isolated event. Some corrective maintenance action was most probably done on the fuel quantity indicating system after the airplane's emergency return to Raleigh-Durham. The missed original "check" justifies and enforcement action, but multiplying a single error by 88 flights appears excessive, this source said. "It is not clear to me that 88 flights were operated in an unsafe condition," he added.

With regard to the American Eagle situation, this source observed:

"I would have expected the American Eagle CASS [continuing analysis and surveillance system] to have identified the aborted takeoff problem as a 'significant' and repetitive problem before 11 aborts. Additionally, I would expect the problem to be 'self disclosed,' which includes a lasting corrective action.

"This enforcement action addresses only the symptom of the problem - it does not appear to address the carrier's inability to detect and correct repetitive events. Did anyone in the FSDO [flight standards district office] think to ask if the carrier has an effective CASS program? On a national level, it seems that someone should be wondering if the 'lessons were learned' from the Alaska Airlines [Flight 261] post-accident inspection findings, NPR [National Program Review] results and DOT/IG [Department of Transportation Inspector General] findings related to CASS." (See ASW, April 1) The second maintenance expert offered equally incisive observations on these two cases:

"Regarding American Eagle, it is hard to imagine CASS not picking up the 11 rejected takeoffs over the four-month period resulting from low oil pressure, even if some of the cases were spread between reporting periods. Operators with fleets of a few aircraft might have reporting periods of three months at the maximum, meaning some of the incidents would not show up in the report until then. One would think any rejected takeoff would be the cause of supervisory or middle management attention, besides triggering a CASS flag.

"The MD-80 case appears to be one of a kind. Someone forgot to do the imbalance after the emergency landing. I don't see that a safety system would have caught this, CASS or otherwise."

American Airlines feels the penalties are unjustified and offered the following counterpoints:

On the MD-80 incident at Raleigh-Durham (RDU):

"Once it learned of the issue, American Airlines [AA] took several immediate steps to make sure the problem did not re-occur. Because of our quick and full response we do not feel such a fine is warranted. Once notified by the FAA that the fuel imbalance check had not been performed, AA immediately performed the check ... and found no discrepancies.

"AA then reviewed its policies and procedures with its contract fuel provider at RDU and impressed upon the contractor the need to comply with those policies and procedures. RDU maintenance personnel were then coached on the requirement to refer to and comply with all policies and procedures contained in the AA fueling manual when responding to fuel quantity discrepancies, as well as the need to comply with the MD-80 Maintenance Manual procedures. An M&E [maintenance and engineering] training bulletin was distributed to all maintenance locations regarding the MM [maintenance manual] requirements for performing a wing fuel imbalance check when one occurs that exceeds established limits.

"AA also revised the MD-80 MM to require a technician to use a measuring stick to verify the fuel quantity in each tank whenever an electronic fuel module is replaced. AA also revised the MD-80 MM to include the fuel imbalance limits specified by the MD-80 Flight Crew Operating Manual. AA also developed a work card for the MD-80 MM to incorporate the steps of the Wing Fuel Imbalance Check and put it in the manual. All of these steps were pointed out to the [FAA] PMI [Primary Maintenance Inspector] in a letter [sent three weeks after the event]."

On the American Eagle fine:

"American Eagle worked closely with the FAA to jointly investigate whether certain requirements of the airline's oil consumption monitoring program were being met. While American Eagle conducted rigorous scheduled oil checks and maintenance, it was determined that additional levels of documentation and monitoring for the SAAB aircraft were necessary. Following this discovery, American Eagle revised its oil consumption monitoring program and received FAA approval. Since receiving the approval ... the airline has been in full compliance with all monitoring requirements. In more than three years since, [American] Eagle has continued to operate the largest SAAB fleet in the world with no violations."

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