American Airlines May Be Fined for Using Plastic Wing Part

The Federal Aviation Administration has proposed a $375,000 civil penalty against American Airlines, the nation’s second largest, for using a plastic rather than a required metal part in McDonnell Douglas DC-10s even after the plastic part failed on two occasions.

The proposal arose from an FAA investigation after a slat on the right wing of an American Airlines DC-10 fell off as the jumbo jet was landing at Dallas-Fort Worth airport last Sept. 14, the FAA said.

Slats are curved metal plates that are extended from the front of the wing during takeoffs and landings when planes move at slower speeds and need additional lift to gain altitude or to remain under control while descending. There are eight on each wing of a DC-10.

The loss of a slat does not necessarily endanger flight, aviation experts said Wednesday. However, the loss of slats on one wing was blamed by the National Transportation Safety Board for the nation’s worst aviation accident, the takeoff crash of an American Airlines DC-10 that killed 273 persons in Chicago in May, 1979.

In the Dallas-Fort Worth incident, investigators found that a phenolic, or plastic, pulley instead of a stronger aluminum pulley was carrying the slat retraction cable.

The plane involved there and two others cited in the FAA penalty letter to American made at least 1,165 flights with the wrong pulleys and thus were in “an unairworthy condition,” the FAA said. On two occasions, the plastic pulley failed, the FAA said.

American Airlines spokesman Lowell Duncan said: “The issue concerns a parts identification problem which American discovered, fixed and itself reported to the FAA. The problem at no time represented risk to flight safety. American is dismayed at the FAA’s approach to this matter. It is a highly technical issue which we discovered and we remedied. For the FAA to come in after the fact and levy the fine does nothing to promote the cause of safety.”