Boeing will recommend more frequent maintenance checks on 767 aircraft

[169west]

CNN article on B767 vibrations

Boeing will recommend more frequent maintenance checks on 767 aircraft - CNN.com (http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/06/23/planes.cracks.found/)

[GWYN]

Wasn't that why CASA grounded the Ansett 767s on Christmas Eve 2000?

[fantom]

From my US mole:

CRACKS ON 767s PROMPT CONCERNS: Structural cracks discovered recently on at
least two American Airlines Boeing 767 jetliners, including one jet that
air-safety regulators believe easily could have lost an engine, are
prompting concerns that some of the problems may turn out to be more
widespread. Over the past two weeks, American, with oversight from the
Federal Aviation Administration, has checked the bulk of its wide-body 767
fleet to look for possible cracks in critical components that attach engines
to the wings. On Monday, the FAA said problems were found on three planes.
The agency said it was working with American and manufacturer Boeing to
"identify the source of the cracking" and was considering new industry-wide
safety mandates. "We are considering additional action, including requiring
more frequent inspections" of the suspect parts, called engine pylons,
according to an FAA spokesman. American spokesman Tim Wagner disputed the
FAA's tally of affected planes. He said the recent flurry of inspections
found two planes with pylon-related cracks and the problems "were caught
when they should have been." Boeing, which has been working closely with the
FAA to identify reasons for the cracks and assess their significance, didn't
have any immediate comment. The size and type of some of the cracks
discovered in the pylons surprised Boeing, which now is drafting a service
bulletin that in the next few days is likely to recommend substantially
stepped-up inspections by virtually all 767 operators, according to people
familiar with the details. The FAA, which has authority to mandate the
changes, is expected to adopt most of Boeing's guidelines. The issue is
attracting high-level attention inside the FAA, Boeing and American partly
because for years there have been relatively strict requirements to inspect
certain parts of all 767 engine pylons after every 1,500 flights. Despite
the frequent inspections, these people say, a routine check of one American
jet for a different issue found a combination of cracks that hadn't been
seen before and was deemed by FAA officials to pose a significant hazard.
Separately, American and the FAA are examining another complex, but
unrelated structural issue that also has potentially significant safety
implications for the airline's Boeing 767 fleet. Engineering experts,
according to people familiar with the matter, continue to assess whether
large, upwardly curved panels attached to the wingtips of some American 767s
have caused or contributed to certain cracks discovered in a section of the
structural backbone of a few planes. Called winglets and installed on many
types of commercial and business jets, the additions are designed to
increase fuel efficiency. (Andy Pasztor, Wall Street Journal - 6/22)

[nicolai]

Wasn't that why CASA grounded the Ansett 767s on Christmas Eve 2000?

Flight Safety Australia March-April 2004 covered this topic (http://aod.casa.gov.au/wcmswr/_assets/main/fsa/2004/apr/36-41.pdf) saying Ansett's failure to accomplish inspections on time also contributed to the 767 groundings. AA found cracks before inspection was due so they're not going to attract regulatory attention for lack of compliance with inspection regimes.