Some AA Pilots Want A300 Grounded
Hey Pprune Crew: for those who believe that the FAA will ground any fleet which suffers a crash due to a flight control malfunction, are you all not aware that the FAA knew about serious control problems with some European airline ATR 42s weeks or months before the terrible disaster in Roselawn, Indiana? The FAA required no new inspections of ATRs with US airlines, and probably never rechecked its icing certification criteria until those people smashed into the frozen Indiana cornfield. Because of the dead people, our dedicated protectors at the FAA then commisioned an Air Force KC-135 tanker to spray water with an ATR flying behind the extended boom, analyzed the surprising results in front of the ailerons, and found that their criteria for icing conditions needed some changes.
Wasn't the American A-300, which crashed near JFK, previously involved in a hard landing incident? If this happened, did it not exert some sort of severe stress on the vertical stabilisor?
Does the FAA ever receive detailed reports on any military aircraft control problems, domestic or overseas (even foreign military?), which involve types with civilian equivalents, i.e. Beechjet trainers, C-130, KC-135, Gulfstreams or 707s at Andrews, Tinker AFB, Lears and 737s at Ramstein AFB (or Stuttgart) etc? Or do the squadrons and wings keep all system anomaly reports (compartmentalized) between them and the manufacturers? Is "plausible denial of info" always a watertight story?
Pprune bosses-nice improvement on the character icons.
Wasn't the American A-300, which crashed near JFK, previously involved in a hard landing incident? If this happened, did it not exert some sort of severe stress on the vertical stabilisor?
Does the FAA ever receive detailed reports on any military aircraft control problems, domestic or overseas (even foreign military?), which involve types with civilian equivalents, i.e. Beechjet trainers, C-130, KC-135, Gulfstreams or 707s at Andrews, Tinker AFB, Lears and 737s at Ramstein AFB (or Stuttgart) etc? Or do the squadrons and wings keep all system anomaly reports (compartmentalized) between them and the manufacturers? Is "plausible denial of info" always a watertight story?
Pprune bosses-nice improvement on the character icons.
Last edited by Ignition Override; 1st Feb 2003 at 02:58.
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FAA icing certification standards have still not changed. It is no 2 on the NTSB'S hit parade of "most wanted" safety changes. The FAA only has a legal view of safety. They never say such and such is safe, or pretty safe, or damn dangerous, just that it is, or is not "in compliance".
The Chinese alerted FAA in 1996 to the high inflammability of Mylar insulation after some nasty fires, and got a snotty letter back saying, basically, "what you say may be true, but it is still in compliance". They only started to put the changes in after Swissair 111. The idea that something could be in compliance and a threat to air safety, like the ATR 42-72 in freezing rain, is not a permissible concept at FAA HQ.
The Chinese alerted FAA in 1996 to the high inflammability of Mylar insulation after some nasty fires, and got a snotty letter back saying, basically, "what you say may be true, but it is still in compliance". They only started to put the changes in after Swissair 111. The idea that something could be in compliance and a threat to air safety, like the ATR 42-72 in freezing rain, is not a permissible concept at FAA HQ.
