Most Foreign Airlines Inspected Planes

Soon after an Alaska Airlines MD-83 crashed off the Southern California coast late last month, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered U.S. airlines to inspect the tail assembly on all similar planes. The airlines raced to comply, inspecting more than 1,000 planes within 72 hours and finding nearly two dozen with problems.

But what of the nearly 900 similar planes flown by foreign airlines?

A Los Angeles Times spot check suggests that the great majority of foreign airlines also carried out the inspections required by the U.S. order, which was communicated through a sophisticated international air safety network that links civil aviation authorities and local airlines across the globe.

Such a quick and comprehensive worldwide response is reassuring news for U.S. travelers who, given the widespread code-sharing arrangements among airlines these days, may board an Aeromexico jet, say, when they’ve booked a trip to Cancun with Delta.

U.S. aviation experts do worry that a few countries lack the resources or commitment to ensure that their airlines comply with directives issued by the FAA or suggestions from the plane manufacturers.

As of October, 70 out of 94 national systems met international standards, 11 were working toward approval, and 13--in Africa and Latin America--failed to pass the FAA’s international safety assessment program. The number of countries meeting the standards, however, is well up from the early 1990s, when two-thirds were not fully complying.

The FAA requires any foreign-registered airplane flying to a U.S. destination to meet the agency’s safety standards. About 600 airlines fly into the United States from 103 countries, according to FAA statistics.

Indeed, air safety analysts say the pressure on airlines to ensure compliance with global standards is tougher than ever--apart from the obvious public relations risk of a bad safety reputation. For one thing, most airlines lease their planes, and insurance companies are extremely demanding on safety issues, given the potential liability problems.

Countries such as Mexico that don’t manufacture airplanes themselves sometimes go so far as to apply FAA directives automatically to their airlines’ fleets.

Jose Pedro Sanchez, director of civil aviation in Mexico, said the FAA directive “was automatically validated by Mexican aviation authorities” and passed on to the airlines. He said that “during the reviews, some lubrications and some adjustments of the mechanism were carried out, but we did not have any significant reports of problems.”

Aeromexico, Mexico’s largest airline, has 37 planes in the MD-80 series. “Even before the FAA issued its bulletin, we began our inspections and completed them Sunday, within the 72-hour period. We didn’t find any problems,” said Alejandro Yberry, a spokesman for Aeromexico.

“In our maintenance workshop, we have full-time representatives from Boeing and from the [Mexican] Civil Aviation Authority. Both these people were present during all the inspections,” Yberry added. “In Mexico, we always follow the suggestions of the manufacturer and the FAA. We work very closely with them. Our workshop is certified by the FAA to make repairs on American airlines’ planes as well as our own.”

From China to Italy to Colombia, airlines said they had carried out the first-phase inspections of the horizontal stabilizer jackscrew assembly, which is suspected of contributing to the Alaska Airlines crash Jan. 31 that killed all 88 aboard. A second, more detailed inspection phase must be completed by March 12.

Wang Zhong, acting director of aircraft airworthiness for China’s Civil Aviation Administration, said China had checked all 50 planes of the suspected model.

“Air safety has no national borders,” Wang said. “We will cooperate with any new requirements that make our planes more safe.”

James M. Burin, technical programs director of the Washington-based Flight Safety Foundation, said compliance with FAA orders is especially keen after a high-profile accident. “After what happened [with Alaska Airlines], it would be highly unusual if they did not do the inspections,” Burin said.

Even so, there are some potentially serious glitches. Kenneth P. Quinn, a former FAA official now in private practice, said enforcement traditionally has been “less rigid” in parts of Africa and Latin America and in the former Soviet Union. He noted that aircraft in these regions also tend to be older and would have undergone more wear and tear than airplanes in richer countries, where they tend to be newer.

“Often, FAA regulations are adopted almost verbatim in many of these countries. The problem is, many do not have the expertise and the resources,” Quinn said. But he added, “In 95% of the areas where all passengers are traveling, they’re enjoying very high standards.”

The scrutiny does not only come from the United States. The International Civil Aviation Organization, or ICAO, based in Montreal, initiated a strict new mandatory safety audit program in 1999. By the end of the year, 49 countries had been audited, and the rest will be tested by September 2001.

The front line of airworthiness is the manufacturers’ own stream of bulletins to airlines worldwide. While not mandatory, these recommendations are scrupulously observed by most airlines. Occasionally, as in the case of the Alaska Airlines crash, the FAA will issue an “airworthiness directive,” which must be carried out by U.S. airlines.

“It’s a pretty efficient system,” said Denis Chagnon, ICAO spokesman in Montreal. “It’s well established and has been in effect for 50 years. It’s part of the bread and butter of the industry.”

Some airlines were less forthcoming than others when asked whether they complied with the FAA directive. Ghana Airways and Yugoslavia’s state-owned JAT didn’t respond to requests for information about their MD-80 series aircraft and whether they had conducted the inspections.

But most airlines said they had done so and had met the 72-hour time limit for the first phase of the inspections. South Korean and Japanese regulators issued orders for inspections once the FAA had issued its directive, and Korean Air and Japan Air System said the checks were carried out immediately.

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Smith reported from Mexico City and Pine from Washington. Times staff writers Ching-Ching Ni in Shanghai; Ann M. Simmons in Nairobi, Kenya; and Valerie Reitman in Tokyo; special correspondent Ruth Morris in Bogota, Colombia; and Maria De Cristofaro of The Times’ Rome Bureau also contributed to this report.