Air Force Defends Charter Use, Arrow Air Safety

The Air Force on Tuesday vigorously defended its use of charter airplanes to transport U.S. military personnel around the world and said it has found no problems with Arrow Air, the Miami-based carrier whose DC-8 crashed in Newfoundland last week.

“As far as we know, there is no reason to believe at this juncture that Arrow is an unsafe airline,” one senior Air Force official said. The official refused to let his name be used, but Pentagon officials said he was speaking as the service’s authorized representative.

Pentagon spokesman Robert B. Sims said, meanwhile, that Arrow has flown nine military missions since the Thursday crash that killed 248 soldiers returning to Ft. Campbell, Ky., from peacekeeping duty in the Sinai Peninsula. Eight crew members also died.

“The charter flights for which (Arrow) contracted will still be carried out,” Sims said.

Since the crash, Arrow has carried 602 passengers and cargo to such destinations as the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean and Keflavik, Iceland. In addition, so-called “supplemental airlines,” which depend heavily on charter flights for their business, have flown at least 14 other trips in that time for the Air Force’s Military Airlift Command, the Pentagon said.

However, two Air Force C-141 transports will carry a contingent of soldiers from the Sinai back to the United States on a trip scheduled to begin today. The trip had been assigned to Arrow but was switched “because of the emotional trauma” of flying on an Arrow airplane along the same route as the doomed aircraft, Sims said.

Safety Review Ordered

He said that Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger has ordered a review of safety standards and the longstanding policy of chartering civilian airliners. The cause of the crash is being investigated by Canadian officials.

Air Force and other Pentagon officials have asserted steadfastly that responsibility for the flight rested with the office of the Multinational Force and Observers, the 11-nation peacekeeping unit to which the soldiers, members of the 101st Airborne Division, were assigned.

“Obviously, we’re very concerned,” the senior Air Force official said. But, denying Air Force responsibility, he said, “to use the word technically responsible, I’d have to say no.”

The senior Air Force official said that the Air Force was responsible for making sure that the airlines hired by the Military Airlift Command are certified as safe operators by the Federal Aviation Administration, that they employ properly trained workers and that they maintain clean equipment.

“Arrow is very good,” the official told reporters, adding that by relying on FAA safety checks, “we are using the same standards you use every time you get on an airplane.”

The Military Airlift Command is responsible for providing transportation overseas each year for about 1 million Pentagon employees and their dependents--95% of them on civilian airliners.

The command arranges with airlines to carry passengers and cargo, and Arrow has been awarded $13.8 million in such contracts. Others in the program range from Rich International Airways and United Air Lines, which have $162,000 contracts, to the Flying Tiger Line, which has the largest commitment, $74.3 million.