FAA Warns of Overheating Fuel Pumps

The Federal Aviation Administration is requiring about 3,500 Boeing jetliners to fly with extra fuel to prevent fuel pumps from overheating and possibly causing an explosion.

The FAA has sent airlines three safety warnings about the problem since August. The latest was issued last weekend after pumps in three planes overheated, the FAA said Tuesday.

The warning is intended as a precaution while the FAA figures out what’s causing the problem with the pumps, made by Hydro-Aire Inc. of Burbank.

No serious problems have been linked to the problem. But if a pump overheats, the right mixture of temperature, oxygen and fuel can cause an explosion, said James McKenna of Aviation Maintenance magazine.

FAA spokesman Paul Takemoto said the extra fuel eliminates the possibility of an explosion. “There’s no danger of [the pumps] igniting fuel vapors if they’re covered,” he said.

The warning will remain in effect until the agency determines the cause, Takemoto said.

The order affects about 1,400 planes -- 737s, 747s and 757s flown by U.S. carriers. The FAA is also sending the advisories to its counterpart agencies overseas, covering an additional 2,100 jetliners.

The National Transportation Safety Board ruled that an explosion in the fuel tank of TWA Flight 800, a Boeing 747, caused it to crash off Long Island in 1996, killing 230 people.

Vapors in the partly empty tank probably were ignited by a spark in the wiring, the safety board said.

In August, the FAA ordered airlines to submerge certain Hydro-Aire pumps with fuel or, if not, to X-ray them to make sure they were properly wired. If they weren’t, they had to be replaced.

Major U.S. carriers said they had few planes in which the suspect pumps were installed.

In September, the FAA found the problem potentially included every Hydro-Aire pump and ordered all fuel pumps submerged or X-rayed and replaced if faulty.

Then, last week, Boeing Co. received reports of overheating in fuel pumps that had been replaced on a Singapore Airlines 747 and on a Lufthansa 747. The overheating wasn’t caused by faulty wiring, Boeing spokeswoman Cindy Wall said.

A pump on a third plane had been removed and was found to have overheated during an inspection.

“It’s baffling,” she said. “They’ve been working nonstop 24 hours a day trying to fix it.”