The photo below is of the wiring bundle that has grounded so many American Airlines flights the past few weeks. The FAA came out with a maintenance directive over a year ago that stated the wire ties must be one inch apart. The AA maintenance managers determined that our MD80′s were close enough to 1 inch as shown in the photo and did not change the spacing of the wire ties.

Some MD80 did come from the factory with wire ties spaced 4-8 inches apart and that prompted the FAA directive that warned of possible chafing and a potential fire hazard. The deadline to comply with this directive was last week.

The FAA says no way to the spacing below and grounded American Airlines entire MD80 fleet.   American operates over 300 MD80′s and have canceled 700-1000 flights a day!

The FAA was really beat up in a congressional hearing last week by several FAA inspectors who told congress that they were forced by their supervisors to ignore discrepancies they found on Southwest Airlines B737′s. The inspectors were from the same regional office that inspects American Airlines and so now the FAA is proving that NOTHING will get by their inspectors.

So, the FAA inspectors are grounding planes that have spacing of anything more than +/- .125!!!

Many do not think this is a safety issue but simply revenge from the FAA from being so embarrassed on Capital Hill. There is just no way that the spacing of the wire ties in the above photo would be more of a fire hazard than wire ties spaces 1" apart.  Take a look…

Technorati Tags: FAA, american airlines, MD80, southwest airlines

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