The FAA ordered Boeing 787 wing inspections, told American its tracking software is not the agency’s problem, and ignored the Boeing accountability question.
The trigger was Boeing’s own investigation separate from the 767 matter. The FAA describes it as “a Boeing investigation for manufacturing errors and excessive preload forces at the lower side of body splice plates common to the lower outboard wing skins,” an investigation that “concluded that shim gaps may have exceeded engineering allowances.” Left alone, the agency writes, that condition “could result in undetected fatigue cracks that can grow to weaken primary wing structure until it cannot sustain limit load and result in subsequent loss of continued safe flight and landing.”
The FAA said no, and its reasoning was that equation-based times “are relieving in nature compared to compliance times based solely on” flight hour or flight cycle limits, the agency wrote, and the simplified version American asked for “would therefore be more burdensome for operators, and many airplanes could become immediately out of compliance.”
A great solo travel tip spotted this week on Live and Let's Fly.
