Facility for airplanes criticized at hearing By Alan Levin, USA TODAY WASHINGTON =97 The maintenance facility that improperly repaired a commuter= =20 plane that crashed Jan. 8 was plagued with problems, according to documents= =20 and testimony released this week. The training program at the facility in=20 Huntington, W.Va., was deficient, a federal inspector said. Furthermore,=20 the facility was supervised by a complex layer of three companies that=20 didn't communicate well, according to the National Transportation Safety=20 Board's (NTSB) records. Partly as a result of the crash that killed all 21= =20 aboard US Airways Express Flight 5481, the Federal Aviation Administration= =20 is considering new ways to oversee maintenance operations, a spokesman=20 said. FAA inspectors monitor maintenance, but the law places responsibility= =20 for maintenance on the airlines. The Air Midwest Airlines Beech 1900D, operated under contract with US=20 Airways Express, crashed 39 seconds after taking off from Charlotte/Douglas= =20 International Airport. The control panels that raise and lower the plane's= =20 nose, known as elevators, were misadjusted by the maintenance workers Jan.= =20 6. When the plane took off two days later, its nose shot skyward because it= =20 was overloaded and tail-heavy. The pilots could not level it because of the= =20 misadjusted elevator controls, the NTSB says. Air Midwest, a subsidiary of= =20 Mesa Air Group, had hired Raytheon Aerospace to perform the maintenance on= =20 its fleet of Beech 1900D aircraft. Raytheon then turned to another company,= =20 SMART Inc. of Edgewater, Fla., to provide the mechanics. Such arrangements= =20 are lawful, and some airlines have successfully hired others to perform=20 maintenance for years. Some safety experts say the arrangement blurred=20 responsibility and may have led to some of the breakdowns that occurred at= =20 the facility. "This accident shows an overwhelming need for the airline to= =20 maintain a total control of the quality system," says John Goglia, an NTSB= =20 board member who had been an airline mechanic. According to testimony before the NTSB and records made public this week: =95 The FAA's inspector overseeing Air Midwest maintenance had repeatedly=20 asked the airline to set-up a training program. "We're working on it," was= =20 the only response he got, he said. =95 The inspection of the repair work on the plane that crashed was done in= =20 violation of the airline's maintenance manual. The work was performed by a= =20 mechanic who was being trained. The mechanic who supervised the work=20 inspected it later. Apparently, neither of them noticed the improper=20 elevator adjustment. =95 The maintenance manual at the facility was inadequate, an Air Midwest=20 official testified. The mechanics said they skipped several steps because=20 they thought those steps did not apply. *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@xxxxxxxxx Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Mas Site: www.tntisland.com/tntrecords/mas2003/ Site of the Week: http://www.caribbeanfloral.com TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************