$1-Million Alaska Airlines Fine Proposed

The Federal Aviation Administration on Monday proposed a fine of nearly $1-million against Alaska Airlines for sloppy maintenance and for flying planes with inoperative equipment that had not been properly repaired.

Part of the fine is sought for flying one plane that had problems with an important navigational instrument and for flying another on hundreds of flights without a flight data recorder, which is a critical aid to air crash investigators.

The agency said that most of the deficiencies were uncovered last spring during an audit ordered as questions mounted about Alaska’s maintenance procedures after the Jan. 31 crash of Flight 261 off the Ventura County coast.

Questions about the airline’s maintenance operations first were raised in 1998 when a grand jury began looking into allegations of falsified records and incomplete repairs at Alaska’s Oakland repair facility.

In March, 64 Alaska mechanics signed a letter to the company alleging that a supervisor had pressured them into substandard work. Some mechanics later told The Times that several jets had been returned to service despite their concerns that further repairs might be needed. The allegations did not involve the plane that crashed. Hearings will be held in Washington next week as the National Transportation Safety Board continues its investigation of the accident that killed all 88 on board the twin-engine jetliner.

While the cause of the crash has yet to be determined officially, the probe has focused for months on a mechanism in the plane’s tail that largely controls the pitch of the jetliner’s nose. Investigators say the wreckage indicated that the mechanism did not have adequate lubrication.

Alaska spokesman Jack Evans said that the maintenance problems cited by the FAA on Monday have been rectified and that the airline has come up with corrective measures, approved by the FAA, to ensure that the problems will not recur.

The FAA’s report Monday said an Alaska MD-80 jetliner like the one that crashed had been returned to service April 12 despite multiple maintenance problems that had not been fixed properly or had been improperly deferred.

These included a malfunctioning air-condition temperature control valve, passenger emergency oxygen generators that were past their expiration dates, a hydraulic leak in the landing gear, and a fuel leak.

“That incident prompted the FAA to audit the maintenance records of all Alaska planes that had been returned to service following heavy maintenance,” the FAA said. “The audit found that at least 21 of the airline’s [Boeing] 737 and MD-80 aircraft had been returned to service with incomplete maintenance records.”

On three of the 21 planes, required inspections had not been performed, the FAA said.

In addition, the agency said, an Alaska 737 flew on April 8 with a navigational instrument that had failed a test and had been improperly cleared for service by an unqualified mechanic. The instrument, called a glideslope indicator, shows pilots the proper angle of descent to a runway during periods of limited visibility.

The FAA said the airline also flew three jetliners between April 20, 1999, and April 8 of this year on which the maintenance of electrical components had been improperly deferred.

A fine of $878,000 was proposed for all of those violations of federal maintenance regulations.

The FAA proposed that Alaska be fined an additional $110,000 for operating an MD-80 for at least 1,300 flights without a properly functioning flight data recorder. The device--one of the plane’s two “black box” recording devices--can provide crucial information for air crash investigators.

In its initial audit report on June 3, the FAA said ineffective management and resultant “sloppiness” at Alaska’s repair facilities might force the agency to shut down the airline’s heavy maintenance program. The FAA gave Alaska a month to come up with a corrective plan.

On June 30, Nick Lacey, the FAA’s director of flight standards service, said the Alaska plan “looks good,” but he warned that the agency might still call for sanctions. That punitive action came Monday in the proposed fines.

Alaska’s Evans said the proposed fines “were not unexpected. . . .”

“When we heard the findings of the audit, we anticipated there might be civil penalties down the line,” he said.

Evans said the carrier will review the FAA’s findings further before deciding how to respond. The airline has 30 days to make a counterproposal.

In the past, the FAA has sometimes reduced proposed fines by as much as 50% after listening to the arguments of the airlines targeted.