US Aviation - Money talks and rules

Dette er bemerkelsesverdig, rett og slett. Altså at ikke en påkrevet fix som gjelder en flytype, gjelder for alle flyene, ikke bare for hvilken jobb det gjør. At lastefly skal unntas er rett og slett uholdbart. Det samme gjelder Flight- and Duty Time Limitations hvor lasteflygere fremdeles ikke har fått de samme bestemmelsene som for de som flyr passasjerer.

Regulator's latest proposal includes alternative fixes for nearly 150 Boeing 757 cargo aircraft

A FedEx Boeing 757 cargo jet at Ronald Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Va., in August 2011. 

By ANDY PASZTOR

U.S. air-safety regulators and aviation industry officials continue to clash over reducing fuel-tank explosion risks on some widely used cargo jets, seven years after such federal fixes were mandated for some 3,000 Boeing and Airbus passenger planes.

The Federal Aviation Administration on Friday released its latest proposal requiring modification of nearly 150 older cargo aircraft to combat hazards of vapors inside fuel tanks igniting on the ground or in the air. Projected to cost U.S. operators of these Boeing 757 cargo models as much as $380,000 a plane for the most extensive fixes-and potentially encompassing many more 757 models world-wide-the initiative aims to ensure the safety of the 757 cargo fleet eventually will be comparable to passenger jets in terms of fuel-tank flammability.

The dispute, under way for years, is one of the last controversial regulatory issues stemming from the fuel-tank explosion that destroyed TWA Flight 800 over Long Island Sound in 1996, killing all 230 people aboard. The accident prompted a flurry of FAA electrical wiring-related directives spanning all commercial aircraft, including a 2008 mandate to install nitrogen-gas-generating equipment on most Boeing and Airbus passenger jet. Much of the safety work on passenger jets has been completed.

So-called inerting systems reduce oxygen levels inside main fuel tanks to prevent a stray spark or short-circuit-originating inside or outside the tanks-from igniting volatile vapors.

However, in 2008, the agency exempted cargo carriers from those nitrogen-inerting requirements. Four years later, the FAA initially sought to reduce the vulnerability of 757 cargo planes to fuel-tank explosions, but its proposal stalled in the face of industry opposition. Now, FAA officials are again demanding that U.S.-registered 757 cargo jets phase in such inerting systems, or operators can opt for less-expensive solutions that would relocate certain wiring and follow up with periodic inspections.