In the New York Times:
The agency has unfairly changed rules for how airlines must comply with safety orders, called airworthiness directives, and is making unreasonable demands about how much interpretation is allowed, according to engineers at American’s huge maintenance base here.
“We’re confused and frustrated,†said Greg A. Magnuson, lead engineer for MD-80 airframe and systems engineering. The F.A.A. has always given the company “latitude,†he said, for complying with directives by making small variations to resolve any contradictions or ambiguities. And now, those changes, which may be as simple as putting a bolt through a hole so it is facing forward rather than backward, are being highly scrutinized.
“We don’t know what the rules are,†added Andrew Rook, a technical crew chief for avionics.
There are obvious risks for American in publicly criticizing the agency that oversees it, given the F.A.A.’s power to bring the airline to a near-standstill. But after maintenance and oversight lapses at Southwest Airlines, aviation experts say the F.A.A. has toughened its relationship with the industry after years of a more collaborative approach.
Some executives in the industry said last week — though only if they were not quoted by name — that the F.A.A. was overreacting. American is alone, so far, in its questioning of the F.A.A., and its goal appears to be push back on a pendulum that it feels has swung too far...
The airworthiness directive behind the groundings last week addressed how to protect a cable from chafing against bolts on the airplane frame, rubbing off the insulation and creating sparks. A backward bolt could provide a rough edge that would cause damage, he said. The order called for sheathing the cable bundle and securing it precisely.
But American officials argue that some of the rules are contradictory. One of them, for example, called for removing and reusing the fasteners, which in this case were a bolt and a nut clip.
A nut clip fits like a paper clip over a hole, holding the nut, rather than sitting entirely behind it. It helps with one-handed installation, which is often necessary in tight spaces. But the rule also had a parts list that included a nut, not a nut clip, American’s engineers said. The airline, they said, was cited for using the clip and not the nut.
John Goglia, a maintenance expert and former member of the National Transportation Safety Board, said that the rules had, in fact, changed.
“If this event had occurred six months ago, it would be likely the F.A.A. would have looked at it for what it was, assessed the risk, and found the risk to be minimal, and allowed American to fix or correct the problems during the next maintenance visit,†he said. That would have given the airline at least a few days to do the job and would have avoided the groundings.
The differences in American’s work, he said, were so small that “those airplanes could have flown for the rest of their careers and those wires would not have been a problem.â€
Carmine J. Romano, American’s senior vice president for maintenance and engineering, said that in a lengthy conference call with regional officials of the F.A.A. after the problems were discovered, he thought he had negotiated a one-week grace period to make the changes but keep flying the planes.
“All of a sudden I woke up and looked around and all my airplanes were on the ground,†he said.
But Peggy Gilligan, the F.A.A. deputy associate administrator for safety, said that American had had 18 months to complete the work, ending in March of this year.
Mr. Magnuson, the lead engineer for American’s MD-80 fleet, said that most of the work had been done before the 18 months began, under the terms of a Boeing service bulletin. American had even helped Boeing write the bulletin, he said, because American, with 300 of the planes, was designated as the “lead airline†for the MD-80 model.
Its airplanes had flown for 20 years without a chafing problem, he said, and could surely have flown a few more days with minor variations in how the cable was protected.
“Our mechanics have been doing this for 20 years,†said another official, Steven Glime, manager of business development and product support manager for component repair and overhaul at American. “They know if I put a clip this way or that way,†he said, rotating his hand, “it’s doing the same job.â€
American’s run-in with the F.A.A. began when the agency decided to audit whether the airline followed 10 airworthiness directives on each airplane model. Now the F.A.A. is conducting an audit on 10 percent of the directives, which comes to about 230 of the approximately 2,300 directives in force on the five models of airplane maintained here.
So the airline is scrambling to make sure that the actions it took to comply with the orders accomplished the job precisely the way the F.A.A. said it should be done.
“We are studying mightily,†said Fred E. Cleveland, vice president for base maintenance. This involves checking any differences between the “service bulletin†from Boeing or Airbus and the F.A.A.’s order, and then ensuring that the “engineering change order†written by American, a step-by-step guide for mechanics to use in carrying out the work, captured all the necessary actions. The airline does not know which airworthiness directives the F.A.A. will choose, so this amounts to “2,300 more questions on a quiz,†Mr. Cleveland said.
American has discovered many instances in which it varied from the F.A.A. airworthiness directives in a way that it now believes the F.A.A. may question, and it has begun applying for retroactive approval, called “alternate means of compliance.â€