Wiring Woes: An Airline Safety Issue?

Aviation experts debate what would happen if the wires were not fixed.

ByABC News
April 11, 2008, 2:04 PM

April 11, 2008 — -- With tens of thousands of passengers inconvenienced at the nation's airports this week, aviation experts are at odds today over whether airlines should have canceled so many flights.

American Airlines called off nearly 3,000 flights this week to reinspect wiring on the carrier's MD-80 jets. Delta, Midwest and Alaska airlines also canceled flights this week for inspections, though in smaller numbers than American.

But were wiring concerns serious enough to warrant such massive cancellations? Should the airlines have inconvenienced so many people at once? Was the flying public's safety actually at risk?

If aviation experts agree on anything today, they agree on this: It's a slippery slope.

Jim Hall, a former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said it's crucial to make sure the little things don't add up.

"Aviation is certainly precise and very unforgiving at 35,000 feet," Hall said.

Nicholas Sabatini, the Federal Aviation Administration's associate administrator for aviation safety, told Congress Thursday that carriers are required to follow the strict letter of the law. If they don't, they cannot fly.

"They made the right decision," Sabatini said Thursday. "They put those aircraft on the ground until they could demonstrate compliance."

After TWA flight 800 crashed off the coast of Long Island in 1996, the FAA required manufacturers to take a closer look at fuel tanks and wiring.

That wiring is at the center of the cancellations this week, as inspectors again make sure that thick bundles of wires in the wheel wells are secured at precise intervals and, where necessary, wrapped with appropriate protective sleeves.

American is reinspecting its planes after securing the wire bundles a quarter of an inch too far apart. Delta found it had an issue with the protective sleeving it was supposed to have wrapped around a certain part of the wire bundles.

The details are minute, but the worst-case scenario of not following directions is made clear in the FAA-issued airworthiness directive at the center of the flap: "We are issuing this AD to prevent shorted wires or arcing at the auxiliary hydraulic pump, which could result in loss of auxiliary hydraulic power, or a fire in the wheel well of the airplane," the directive states.