FAA Chief Declares DC-10 Jetliners Safe

Federal Aviation Administration chief James B. Busey declared DC-10 jetliners safe Thursday, despite an incident the day before in which an engine aboard a Northwest Airlines DC-10 broke apart, forcing the plane to make an emergency landing in Denver.

“We know of no hard facts at this time that would lead us to take any kind of action to ground the DC-10,” Busey told reporters. “It’s safe to fly. I would fly in the aircraft today.”

Meanwhile, experts investigating Wednesday’s mishap on Northwest Flight 308 from Los Angeles to Minneapolis said the incident should not be compared to the catastrophic engine failure on the United Airlines DC-10 that crashed in Iowa last month.

Among other things, the engines were made by different manufacturers, they said. The engine aboard the Northwest DC-10-40 model was manufactured by Pratt & Whitney, whereas the engine on United’s DC-10-10 model was made by General Electric. The plane is manufactured by McDonnell Douglas.

“There really aren’t a lot of similarities. There are two different engines and two different DC-10s,” said Rachel Halterman, spokeswoman for the National Transportation Safety Board.

“The engine has a good service record,” said Mark Sullivan, a Pratt & Whitney spokesman, noting that the company built 75 of the engines in 1973 for Northwest Airlines.

Passengers should not be overly concerned about flying on DC-10s in light of the two incidents, said Nancy Gilmer, a representative of the American Assn. of Flight Attendants. “Since the engine was (different), I have less of a concern,” she said.

Six investigators from the safety board in Washington arrived Thursday at Denver’s Stapleton International Airport to determine what caused Flight 308’s rear engine to break apart. The plane, carrying 256 passengers, landed safely Wednesday night.

“The pilot reported a vibration and a loss of oil pressure, and he shut down the engine,” said Robert Johnson, head of the NTSB’s Denver office.

Since the airport had a warning of 15 minutes to prepare for the plane’s landing, fire trucks, ambulances and foam trucks were standing by, airport spokesman Richard Boulware said. No one was hurt when the plane landed, and the passengers exited at the gate.

Northwest spokesman Doug Williams said it was the airline’s first major problem involving its fleet of 20 DC-10s.

“Everything we do depends on the results of the inspection. It would be premature to check every DC-10 in our fleet with that type of engine,” he said.

Renewed questioning of the DC-10’s safety coincided with the first meeting Wednesday of a government-industry joint task force formed to examine possible design changes in the DC-10 and other aircraft to enable them to withstand system failures.

The task force was formed in response to the United crash landing on July 19, in which 111 people died after the plane’s rear engine blew apart, severing that DC-10’s main and backup hydraulic control systems.