The FAA, an example of great aviation safety oversight

On June 25th, 2015, Allegiant Air reported five emergency landings. They resulted from an instrument panel that started smoking, a tail cone that was overheating, a generator that failed, and a fuel pump that failed. Allegiant has reported the highest number of precautionary landings of any other carrier, some say of any other two carriers combined. The response by the FAA? Gather numbers and reports, and ignore the problem. Last year a pilot was fired for ordering an evacuation of an aircraft, which can be a sign of bad management. They didn't even fine them after a maintenance contractor almost caused an accident after performing maintenance on one of their aircraft.

Twenty years after Valujet 592 crashed into the Everglades, little has changed in the FAA when it comes to oversight of the airlines. After 15 years, and millions of dollars, the system that they attempted to put into place to monitor trends at the airlines that might show a safety problem, they threw the system out, because they couldn't get it to work. The replacement for it, is to basically allow the airlines to monitor themselves.

Allegiant is a great example. In September 2013, the FAA found their maintenance procedures were below standard, so they announced they would bar them from buying new planes, adding routes, or other growth procedures until they fixed the problem. Allegiant agreed, and the FAA took no action. In December 2013, an MD-88 that underwent maintenance in Oklahoma City was signed off, without anyone noticing that a cotter pin was left out of the fuel system. The day after the plane went back into service, it made an emergency landing in Fargo, after the pilot had to shut the engine down due to uncontrolled surging from too much fuel being delivered to the engine.

The contractor reported the incident, and the FAA allowed Allegiant and the contractor to investigate the incident. Allegiant reported that they would no longer allow the worker that signed off on the aircraft to sign off on work completed. The FAA agreed and took no action. In 2015, another Allegiant aircraft underwent overhaul, and the worker failed to notice, again, that a cotter pin was not installed in the tail flight control system. The aircraft flew 261 flights before the control rod came apart. They were taking off in Las Vegas, and the pilot noticed the controls go full nose up, and they couldn't get them forward. They aborted at over 100 mph.

Allegiant notified the FAA of the incident by text message, and the FAA and Allegiant investigated together. They found the contractor to be at fault. The contractor stated they would require a second worker to sign off on major work to the aircraft, and the FAA closed the case, with no fines or action taken beyond the investigation. In 2015, there were 12 times that Allegiant had three or more flights end with an aircraft breaking down in a single week.

In May of 2015, John Tutora, who was the interim inspector in charge of monitoring Allegiant's maintenance programs retired from the FAA, and immediately went to work at Allegiant as their regulatory compliance manager.

www.tampabay.com...

It's far past time for the FAA to be ended and replaced with something else, and that something needs to be far more effective than the bogus agency that is in place now. Right now, US commercial flights are safer than ever, but that's more a matter of luck than anything the FAA is done. After Valujet, the nickname for the FAA was the Tombstone Agency, because so often they won't take any action against airlines or to make procedures safer until someone dies.

Sickening isn't it.... Just one of many many government programs that are basically there to collect a pay check

That is unbelievable.

In my former line of work there would be court martials over something like this.

Sounds eerily familiar to Valujet's track record right before the oxygen canister incident. Appreciate the heads up on these clowns, will steer clear from here on out.

Not to mention their response to general aviation "loss of control accidents"

They say LOC is the biggest accident cause, particularly a stall/spin accident (google it- plane stops making lift (too slow/too high angle of attack, plane starts to spin because of uneven lift on one wing+other wing).

So what does the FAA do? Stop mandating teaching pilots spin recovery in the late 20th century.

What do they do next? Tell them not to practice full stall recoveries.

What did they do in 2016? Stop having instructors teach pilots to fly super slow near the critical angle of attack (pilots NEED to learn how to do this! It can save lives!).

What do we have now? Severely UNDERTRAINED pilots and it is making me crazy.

Then, there's all of this fear mongering on "stalls" (once again, aircraft loses lift because not enough air flow to keep it aloft, possibly from too slow of speed--critical "angle of attack" exceeded--this has NOTHING to do with stopping the engine). "Stalls will kill you!" "Avoid stalls at all cost!"

When I was learning to fly they'd make us stall the thing left and right for kicks and giggles. It ain't so bad to learn to do it right. Pilots NEED to experience these stalls to understand how to recognize and RECOVER from them. If a pilot has never been in a true stall and RECOVERED from it, how can we expect him/her to recover from an unintentional stall caused by, say, a cockpit distraction?

The FAA has some 'splainin' to do.

a reply to: Voiceofthemajority

It should. Allegiant was started by one of the people that was running Valujet at the time of the crash.

Allegiant is just one symptom of the overall problem of the FAA. There are many many many more examples, but they're the most blatant one.

There has been zero accountability of domestic programs for quite some time.

If this was made a priority, it would be fixed. The FAA is underfunded and undermanaged. We are essentially flying on luck and good engineering.

The only thing between you and death, is the crew in the cockpit, jumping through flaming hoops, fighting snakes, trying to keep everyone alive. BTW, they are accepting less trained people in there too.

a reply to: cosmania

I've been saying for years that the FAA is a joke, but they were kind enough recently to give plenty of evidence of just how much of a joke they really are.

The FAA has two main missions that sometimes conflict with each other. The first is to regulate aviation in the United States. The second is to promote aviation in the United States.

a reply to: JIMC5499

And they're doing a fantastic job at both.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Yep. Top notch.

"FAA - We're not happy until you're not happy!"

It's a motto they live by every day.