FAA Slaps 139 Citations on Northwest Air

Trouble-prone Northwest Airlines, involved in a crash that killed 156 people last year in the nation’s second worst air disaster, was cited today by the Federal Aviation Administration for 139 shortcomings.

The agency said Northwest failed to ensure that pilots flew no longer than allowed, improperly delayed repairs and committed other safety violations.

In a 110-page safety report, the FAA said that during a monthlong safety inspection it found that the Minneapolis-based airline failed to classify some repairs as major and did not keep proper records of repairs.

At least two Northwest Airlines jetliners, both DC-10s, flew several flights between Jan. 1 and Feb. 11 “in an unairworthy condition,” the report said.

No Flight Time Monitor

The report also said Northwest “does not have a system to monitor flight and duty time for management pilots to ensure compliance with flight time limitations.”

FAA authorities studied Northwest’s operations for 31 days, beginning Jan. 20, the agency said.

The airline could be hit with one of the largest fines in aviation history, WCCO-TV in Minneapolis reported Thursday night.

But Lynn A. Jensen, a spokesman for the FAA’s flight standards division, said today it is “way too early to make judgments” about whether a fine will be levied.

The inspection found evidence of deferred maintenance and a Northwest memo telling employees how to skirt time limits for repairs, WCCO-TV said.

Evacuation Training Faulted

The FAA also faulted how flight attendants are trained to evacuate planes, assignments of pilots to fly longer than safety rules allow and apparent failure to conduct required safety inspections, the station said.

The report found that Northwest flight dispatchers were burdened with an “excessive workload” and contended the airline “does not provide enough qualified dispatchers at each dispatch center to ensure proper operational control of each flight.”