Linear Air and DayJet Not Impacted by FAA Order

News of the Eclipse engine throttle inspection emergency order issued by the FAA this week as the result of the NTSB report on a recent Eclipse June 5 incident was surely widely publicized. However, it would appear that the magnitude of the national publicity in articles like that in the New York Times ("Federal Agency Grounds Light Jet Used as Air Taxi") was somewhat overdone, so to speak. With the order being issued Thursday, both DayJet and Linear Air had completed the required inspections with no impact on Friday's scheduled flight operations.

In today's Washington Post article entitled, "FAA Orders Jet Inspections After Emergency Landing," it's apparent there was no adverse impact on Fridays' flight operations of Linear Air's four Eclipses. The article states:

"Linear Air, the leading air taxi service in the Northeast, didn't cancel any flights yesterday. Linear has an Eclipse 500 stationed at Manassas Regional Airport. The company said it learned of the inspections at 8 a.m. and completed the FAA requirements on all four of its Eclipse 'very light jets' in three hours.

'It was quick and simple for us to put the additional pages into the aircraft flight manuals and do the simple test of the throttles,' said William Herp, Linear's chief executive."

DayJet fared much the same with its 28 Eclipses according to the Sun Sentinel article, "Boca Raton-based DayJet's 28 planes OK to fly after FAA orders inspections." All inspections were completed on third shift late Thursday and all planes were ready to fly as scheduled Friday morning.

According to Eclipse, physical inspection of the throttle takes about 10 minutes per aircraft and the order required the insertion of new emergency procedure pages into the aircraft's flight manual for procedures for dual engine-control failure.

Yesterday's online version of the Wall Street Journal has an informative article entitled, "Eclipse Says Its Jets Haven't Been Grounded." Interestingly, that article stated:

"Investigators are concerned because such a failure was not anticipated during testing of the very light jet, which is aimed at private pilots who are ready to move into jet airplanes from lower-performance propeller planes.

Mr. Raburn said Eclipse believes it can fix the problem with a change in its software, but he said the company will make additional design changes if necessary. 'I don't want to downplay this. There is a condition here that we did not anticipate,' he said."

Anyone involved in aviation knows that with any new model of an aircraft there will be failures, malfunctions and challenges that will indeed never be experienced in thousands of hours of testing, simulation or certification of the aircraft, but will inevitably occur once the aircraft becomes operational and matures. While the FAA order based on advice from the NTSB Board appeared a little conservative and was most likely due in part to the political pressure of the current environment, any new platform can expect such development and maturity "events" once it becomes fully operational. For that matter, any mature platform can expect the same as the airframe ages.

In the active duty Navy and the Reserves, I flew in some P-3 aircraft from 1987 through 2005 that were older than me. During those years, we received countless official changes to various "emergency procedures," on an aircraft that had cumulatively millions of hours of operational flight time. That's not unexpected during an aircraft's lifetime. The Airworthiness Directive issued this past week for the Eclipse June 5 incident is just part of the process.

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DOT IG's Comments on Manufacturer's Suppliers

I spent a large part of last week at the NBAA Maintenance Management Conference in Florida where I had the honor of appearing on the agenda to speak on maintenance risk and legal issues both from the litigation and regulatory perspective. As always, NBAA put on a great conference. In preparing for my comments, there was needless to say a wealth of relevant news and information on maintenance issues involving Part 121 air carriers. I also was aware of the testimony of Department of Transportation Inspector General Calvin Scovel (29 year Marine Corps veteran) as he had several opportunities to appear before congressional committees in the last few weeks.

On April 10, he spoke before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Subcommittee on Aviation Operations, Safety and Security. His comments were entitled "Key Safety Challenges Facing the Federal Aviation Administration." The April 10th testimony focused on "the key actions that FAA and its stake holders will need to address over the next several years. These included (1 ) strengthening FAA’s oversight of the aviation industry, (2) improving runway safety, and (3) addressing attrition in two of FAA’s critical workforces–air traffic controllers and aviation safety inspectors."

One week later, on April 17, 2008, the Inspector General testified before the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies. His comments, many of which were repetitive, were entitled "Key Safety and Modernization Challenges Facing the FAA." They focused on "(1) strengthening FAA’s oversight of the aviation industry, including its systems for monitoring air carriers’ use of outsourced maintenance and aircraft manufacturers’ suppliers; (2) keeping existing modernization programs on track, reducing risk with NextGen, and setting realistic expectations; and (3) addressing attrition within FAA’s air traffic controller and inspector workforces."

The IG's discussions in the April 17 testimony with respect to the importance of NextGen including ADS-B implementation ("a new satellite based surveillance system that has the potential to enhance safety and capacity") are very relevant to the air taxi industry. I have previously discussed the importance of NextGen.

However, with maintenance compliance in the news and the reliability of aircraft components always an issue, I wanted to highlight the IG's discussion on the FAA's oversight - or lack thereof - of the suppliers to aircraft manufacturers. Earlier this year in February, the DOT IG issued a report entitled "Assessment of FAA's Risk-Based System for Overseeing Aircraft Manufacturers' Suppliers." Many of the comments about suppliers in this month's testimony were based on the findings of this earlier audit report. Here are some insights as to current matters related to aircraft component suppliers that I thought were relevant to Part 135 and 91 operators, many of whom are utilizing new aircraft:

• FAA's current oversight of aviation manufacturers is based on a system that assumes the manufacturer has primary control over the production of their aircraft rather than trusting suppliers to design and manufacture a large portion of the aircraft.
• "FAA has not ensured that manufacturers are providing oversight of their suppliers. Manufacturers are the first line of defense in ensuring the products used on their aircraft meet FAA and manufacturers' standards."
• "FAA does not require inspectors to perform audits of suppliers to determine how well manufacturer's quality assurance programs are working."
• In the last four years, FAA "has inspected an average of 1 percent of the total suppliers used by the five major manufacturers [DOT] reviewed."
• At FAA's current surveillance rate, "it would take the inspectors 98 years to audit every supplier once."
• The DOT observed "systemic deficiencies" at the 21 suppliers it visited. "For example, nearly half (43 percent) of the suppliers had deficiencies in their tool calibration and employee training programs. Deficiencies in these areas could impact the quality of the parts of these suppliers."

One of my presentation "take-aways" was the importance of due diligence in outsourced maintenance in that although you can outsource the work, you cannot outsource the liability and ultimate responsibility for FAA compliance. That remains with the certificate holder and aircraft operator. With respect to component manufacturers and suppliers, I thought these comments on supplier oversight were somewhat noteworthy and relevant to Part 135 operators -- most of whom's business plans include new aircraft with a large number of components provided by outside suppliers.

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