1115.org

(1) Connecting The Dots
AP:

American Airlines canceled 850 flights Wednesday — more than one-third of its schedule — as it spent a second straight day inspecting the wiring on some of its jets, the same issue that caused the nation’s biggest airline to scrub hundreds of flights two weeks ago.

American canceled nearly 500 flights on Tuesday, stranding hundreds of passengers. Federal inspectors found problems with wiring work done two weeks ago, although the airline says safety was never jeopardized.
[..]
It was American’s second bout with mass cancellations in less than two weeks for failing to meet the same wiring rules set by the Federal Aviation Administration, which is cracking down on airlines after admitting its inspectors were too lax last year with Southwest Airlines Co.

Since the FAA began looking more closely at airlines’ compliance with safety directives, there have been cancellations at Southwest, Delta Air Lines Inc. and UAL Corp.’s United Airlines. The agency levied a $10.2 million civil penalty against Southwest for using planes that had missed inspections for cracks in the fuselage.

(Tim Wagner, a spokesman for American) said an FAA inspector checked several MD-80s Monday and found that some of the wiring work performed two weeks ago didn’t meet FAA standards. At issue: the spacing and direction of cords used to secure bundles of wires in the planes’ auxiliary hydraulic systems.

(For the record, you are best off discounting everything Tim Wagner says. When he goes “checked several MD-80s Monday and found that some of the wiring work performed two weeks ago didn’t meet FAA standards”, what he actually means is that FAA inspectors performed a a spot check of 10 American planes, and found that “nine of the 10 airplanes still weren’t in compliance with safety rules for the wiring”.)

Let’s see:
— The FAA slaps Southwest Airlines with a $10.2 million fine for using planes that had missed inspections.
— The FAA starts cracking down on other airlines, and looking more closely at airlines’ compliance with safety regulations.
— American Airlines has to resort to mass cancellations of flights two weeks ago for failing to meet safety rules relating to wiring.
— The FAA finds problems with the work American Airlines did to meet the safety rules relating to wiring.
— American Airlines has to cancel almost all of its MD-80 flights on Wednesday (1000 flights were eventually canceled).

It sounds very much like FAA has been looking the other way on compliance with safety rules for a long, long time. Long enough that some airlines have got thoroughly unused to complying with basic safety regulations. Unused enough that when they are forced to comply on an emergency basis, they are unable to get it right. Almost as if they don’t have technicians who know how to do it right. Almost as if they are fumbling to do this stuff for the very first time.

Quite a confidence booster, huh? The U.S.airline industry, consistently putting safety first since last month.

$3.50 gas notwithstanding, you still want to fly? American Airlines?

(2) Trusssst In Me
Here’s some other stuff you might want to think about, next time you consider entrusting your life to American Airlines.

Some first-person testimony, first:

Capt. Sam Mayer says he knew he was in trouble when he heard a noise minutes after takeoff from the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on a frigid day last December.

The American Airlines pilot says the plane’s nose gear would not retract and he quickly began circling the Minnesota airport. But freezing temperatures and icy precipitation started to create problems inside the plane, Mayer says.

“Our windshield started to cover with ice from the bottom working its way up,” he says.

“As we were running the emergency procedures, there was a pop. Everyone’s ears blew out. We realized that we had lost the pressurization of the aircraft at that time.”

Within minutes, Mayer managed to bring the airplane safely back to the airport. But when he inspected the exterior of the aircraft, he says the MD-80 jetliner looked like a “popsicle.” The malfunctioning nose gear disabled the plane’s anti-icing systems, according to Mayer, who says the wings and tail of the plane were freezing over.
[…]
CNN has learned that American’s fleet of MD-80 planes has recorded 23 landing gear problems in the last few months; several have resulted in emergency landings. Pilots say the Fort Worth-based airline and the Federal Aviation Administration are not doing enough to find a solution.

The latest emergency landing happened in February when the landing gear of American Flight 862 would not retract after the plane took off from Palm Beach International Airport in Florida. The MD-80 with 138 people on board landed safely in Miami after spending two hours in the air burning off fuel.

That emergency landing was just the latest in a string of mishaps related to the front landing gear not retracting on MD-80 jetliners at American.
[…]
Mayer … says the landing gear problem almost became a disaster.

“There was the potential for a catastrophic incident. No doubt about it,” he says.

American Airlines’ response?
a) Falsify the facts:

In a statement to CNN, American spokesman Tim Wagner says the airline has “identified the root causes of the problems and fixed them.” American says it has identified “three separate issues with retracting of MD-80 nose landing gear, each of which was related to extremely cold temperatures and precipitation.”

Ah yes, the freezing cold skies of Miami…

b) Deny the problem:

According to Wagner’s statement, “We have had no similar issues in well over a month. Our fleet of 300 MD-80s departed on more than 150,000 flights in the last five months, and the landing gear retracted perfectly on 99.9999 percent of those flights.”

Sorry, that was a scoring error. Wagner deserved bonus points for falsifying the facts too. 99.9999% of 150,000 is 149,999.85. Wagner, therefore, claimed there really wasn’t a single flight in the last five months on which the landing gear failed to retract perfectly. Of course, his bonus points will have to be reduced at least by half, since he pretty much revealed his own lie by the statement that there had been a similar incident a little over a month ago.

But then, the size of the bonus should surely depend also on the size of the lie, in which case Wagner may end up doing all right. Assuming that CNN has less incentive to lie about this than Tim Wagner (who may well be paid by the lie, for all we know), and assuming that “23 landing gear problems in the last few months” translates into “23 landing gear problems in the last five months”, the actual failure rate was more than 150 times Wagner’s claimed failure rate of 0.0001%. That is to say, reporting on the 9/11 bombings, Wagner would have told us that only 20 people were killed that day.

And let’s also pause to admire the stones you need to be in the airline industry and brag about not having had a particular safety problem for “well over a month”. Especially when you’re addressing a safety problem that’s plagued you repeatedly.

c) Attack the credibility of the whistleblowers:

American does not dispute that it has had issues on MD-80s, but the airline said pilots are in contract talks and “certain misinformation” has been shared with the media.

Good to see someone at American Airlines going by the manual. You should, of course, only attack the credibility of your whistleblowers, you should never address what they actually said. Claim they are putting out misinformation for their own dastardly purposes, never specify what the misinformation consists of.

The union’s response?

The pilots’ union says any fix could be costly to the airline and that leaking information to the press gives the union no advantage in its contract negotiations.

American Airlines. They know why you fly. It’s for the sheer thrill of gambling, for the rush that comes from putting your life in their hands.