FAA OVERSIGHT IN REPAIRS MAY BE KEY

AGENCY UNABLE TO FIND RECORDS OF MONITORING AT MAINTENANCE BASE
Saturday, May 10, 2003

The Federal Aviation Administration's monitoring of a West Virginia maintenance base has emerged as a key issue in the investigation of the crash of a US Airways Express flight in Charlotte, which killed 21 people.

Despite an exhaustive records search, the FAA has been unable to provide documents showing that its inspectors ever saw the mechanics in Huntington, W.Va., work on planes before the Jan. 8 crash. The search followed an Observer request for inspection records, filed under the Freedom of Information Act.

It's unclear whether the FAA was aware, before the crash, of the unusual operating arrangement at the maintenance base. Although commuter airline Air Midwest flew the plane for US Airways and operated the base, it contracted maintenance work to Raytheon Aerospace LLC, which in turn contracted with a Florida-based company to provide mechanics. Some experts say such an arrangement would make it harder for the airline to ensure the quality of work.

The National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the crash, has said flight control cables on the Beech 1900 turboprop may have been improperly adjusted. The mechanic who adjusted the cables in Huntington two days before the crash had never done the job on that type of plane before, sources said. The NTSB is expected to look at how the FAA monitored that repair shop.

The board's scrutiny comes at a time when the U.S. Department of Transportation inspector general's office is studying how the FAA monitors third-party maintenance, such as the kind done in Huntington. Some inspectors and aviation experts say the FAA is short-staffed, and they question its ability to keep up, given the industry's financial problems and increasing reliance on third-party maintenance.

The way the FAA oversees maintenance "provides an illusion to the public that we are doing what we need to do," says Linda Goodrich, a maintenance inspector who helps run a union of FAA inspectors. "More and more accidents are going to happen."

No laws or regulations require the FAA to inspect every maintenance facility an airline operates, according to agency spokesman Les Dorr. The FAA monitors airlines to ensure that they train mechanics appropriately, distribute maintenance manuals and properly calibrate tools, among other things, Dorr said.

Jerry Unruh, the chief FAA inspector overseeing Air Midwest maintenance, said in an interview last week that he visited the Huntington hangar at least twice before the crash, once before it began operating last summer and once afterward. Unruh, who is based in Wichita, Kan., where Air Midwest is headquartered, said he can't remember the dates.

He told The Observer last week that he couldn't explain why the visits didn't show up in a database where information about all FAA inspections is supposed to be captured. According to an FAA spokeswoman, Unruh said he entered the records of his first visit into the computer system shortly after it was completed last summer, but thinks a computer glitch kept it from being saved.

Two days after talking with The Observer, Unruh re-entered inspection records related to the visit into the database, using information from his notes, according to the FAA spokeswoman. The information was added to the computer system May 2 - 10 months after the reported inspection date. Unruh subsequently declined to comment.

The records indicate Unruh visited the hangar July 15, before the shop started working on planes. According to the records, Unruh raised concerns about insufficient lighting and missing equipment, but found no problems with training records.

The FAA has been unable to find any records showing inspectors visited the hangar between the time when maintenance work began in late July and when the crash occurred in January.

Douglas Burdette, Freedom of Information Act manager for the office that keeps the database, said it's rare that inspection records aren't properly downloaded into the system. Such computer problems probably affect one or two of the more than 10,000 inspection records entered into the database annually, he said.

Computer searches found no indication that FAA inspectors visited the shop a second time before the crash, Burdette said.

FAA officials say they'll continue to search for records documenting any further inspections of the maintenance base.

Keeping airline maintenance records is considered a key to ensuring the safety of the nation's aviation system. Without good records, it's harder for the FAA to identify trends and recurring problems.

Two days after the crash, other FAA inspectors based in West Virginia inspected the hangar. They wanted to determine "who Raytheon Aerospace, LLC is and what type of work is being performed at the facility," according to FAA records.

Citing the NTSB's investigation, Unruh said he couldn't comment about whether the FAA was aware before the crash that Raytheon had contracted with an Edgewater, Fla. company called Structural Modification and Repair Technicians Inc., or SMART, to provide contract labor.

During their Jan. 10 visit, FAA inspectors found that 10 mechanics worked at the Huntington hangar, and all but three were contract workers from SMART.

Experts have told The Observer that it's rare for companies to hire mechanics from a temporary agency such as SMART to perform routine line maintenance like the kind done at Huntington. However, as it geared up at the recently opened repair station, Raytheon was gradually shifting workers from the SMART payroll to its own, said a source familiar with the investigation.

Unruh said he remembers watching mechanics take apart and reassemble a plane's nose gear during a second visit to the hangar before the crash. He found no problems with the work, he said. FOIA officials say they've been unable to find records of such a visit.

A source said the mechanic who adjusted elevator control cables on the Beech 1900 expected a supervisor to inspect his work. Investigators are trying to determine whether that happened.

Unruh wouldn't talk specifically about the qualifications of the mechanic who adjusted the cable, but said Air Midwest's maintenance manual stipulates mechanics have training or experience in such work before they do it on their own. "We're investigating whether that is actually what happened," Unruh said.

At a May 20 public hearing in Washington, D.C., the NTSB is expected to explore the maintenance at the Huntington hangar, the relationship of the companies responsible for it and the FAA's monitoring of the shop.

The board also may hear from experts who believe excessive weight played a major role in the crash of flight 5481. Sources say the 19-seat plane may have weighed several hundred pounds more than the maximum allowable weight of 17,120 pounds.

Since the crash, the FAA has reviewed rules governing passenger and baggage weight in planes with 19 seats and fewer; its preliminary study indicates current weight standards are too low.

The Charlotte flight marked the first time the plane was fully loaded after the cable adjustment, sources said. A full load would have meant that the pilots required more response from the flight control system.

The Huntington hangar is about 900 miles from Air Midwest's Wichita headquarters.

The FAA inspectors responsible for overseeing an individual airline's maintenance are typically stationed near the airline's headquarters or one of its major maintenance bases. To send inspectors to a remote site involves travel, which often is limited by budget constraints.

Air Midwest has five maintenance bases, located in Arkansas, Florida, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and West Virginia. Three FAA maintenance inspectors, based in Wichita, are responsible for monitoring them. The inspectors also are supposed to keep tabs on maintenance performed on Air Midwest's planes at dozens of other airports.

Overwhelmed FAA inspectors rarely visit uncertified repair shops located far from their office, according to Goodrich, the FAA union official. Usually, FAA inspectors would visit such a shop before it begins work, but they may never have time to return, Goodrich said. "That may be the first and last time I go to see him," she said.

After the 1996 crash of a ValuJet DC-9 in the Florida Everglades, the FAA increased inspections of new airlines during their first five years of operation. But nothing requires inspectors to do more frequent or intensive inspections when existing airlines open new maintenance shops.

Nick Lacey, director of flight standards for the FAA from 1999 to 2001, said the agency should take a much closer look at new airline maintenance shops.

"For any new organization, it takes a period of time to ensure it functions the way it's supposed to," he said.

Some longtime FAA inspectors say heavy workloads have left them with less time to inspect maintenance shops. The number of FAA field inspectors has declined since 1998, according to the union that represents them, while the number of commercial airline departures has increased.

In recent years, more airlines have attempted to cut maintenance costs by turning to third-party shops such as Raytheon. That has made it harder for the FAA to visit all the places where crucial work is done, some inspectors and aviation experts say.

Some inspectors say they've been forced to rely more on the industry and its maintenance contractors to police themselves.

"I think the public demands more oversight," Goodrich said. "We feel it's just getting thin."

Ames Alexander: (704) 358-5060; aalexander@charlotteobserver.com