Alarmed by Crashes, FAA Probes Commuter Airlines

The Federal Aviation Administration, concerned about the rash of fatal crashes of commuter airlines, announced Tuesday that it has begun a “top-to-bottom” investigation of the industry to see whether it is complying fully with safety rules.

FAA Administrator T. Allan McArtor, citing the “explosive growth” of commuter airlines in recent years, said that the recent series of crashes--seven since last November resulting in 56 deaths--has prompted the agency’s concern that the growth “has to be monitored.”

McArtor said that a team of FAA inspectors already has begun analyzing data on all 173 commuter airlines in an effort to identify possible problem areas and that it will conduct in-depth inspections of about 20% of these by this fall.

“The obvious question here is why is the commuter safety record running counter to a trend that (once) made it a safety example for the (entire) airline industry,” McArtor said.

He said that the FAA wants the industry to return to “the 1986 environment, when commuters had the safest year in their history.” That year, commuter airlines recorded only two fatal accidents, causing a total of four deaths.

McArtor said that the new round of inspections will focus on pilot training and safety, management practices, maintenance and record-keeping. The inquiry will cover short-haul airlines that fly scheduled flights using planes that seat 30 or fewer passengers.

The agency regularly conducts intensive “white-glove” inspections of major airlines but has not done so extensively for commuter airlines. More than 15 million passengers traveled on commuter flights last year, twice as many as eight years earlier.

The investigation is designed “to see there is no erosion of consumer confidence,” McArtor said.

McArtor said that the FAA also will consider whether major airlines that formally affiliate with commuter airlines--such as Piedmont Airlines’ link with the regional Henson Airlines--should be required to take some responsibility for the commuter airlines’ safety practices.

Currently, most such relationships involve little more than sharing a common reservation system. However, McArtor said that “maybe the relationship ought to extend beyond” that--particularly in cases where commuter lines use the logos of the major carriers.

The seven commuter airline accidents that have occurred since last November have included the Feb. 20 crash of an Avair plane at Raleigh-Durham, N.C., in which 12 people were killed; a Trans Colorado Airlines crash at Durango, Colo., Jan. 19 in which nine people died; and the Jan. 4 crash of a Promptair plane at Bedford Park, Ill., that killed one person.

The accidents have involved a variety of aircraft types, and the FAA says it has found no specific problems that are common to the crashes. But it said subsequent investigations have shown that some carriers were not complying with federal aviation regulations.

McArtor said that the FAA recently has authorized commuter airlines to use flight simulators in training pilots the way major airlines do and has proposed rules for commuter lines to install “black box” recording devices to help identify the causes of accidents.

John Fredericksen, executive vice president of the Regional Airline Assn., supports the FAA probe.

But Fredericksen worried that inspectors would not spend enough time flying with pilots and watching maintenance workers do their jobs. Too much emphasis, he said, might be placed on inspecting the industry’s management and record-keeping.

“We would encourage them not to spend too much time on paper work,” he said. “That would not be productive for the FAA or the industry.”