Airworthiness Directives Case Study

For want of a nail, the kingdom was lost. A well known proverbial rhyme used by Benjamin Franklin preceded by the words, “A little neglect may breed mischief”. That quote might be true for most air accidents and environment threats these days. To avoid these negligence and violations, national aviation authorities imposed high financial fines and penalties towards certificate holders. With this action, they implied a zero tolerance policy to eliminate undesirable conduct by the operator as well as a scare tactic that induced other operators to maintain equipment in an airworthy state and follow regulations. Though time have changed, new and improved technologies emerged while safety management policies refined and increased amount of traffic
Example an Eastern Airlines air accident in 1986 caused Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), national aviation authority of the United States, to open an investigation towards the operator adherence to the Federal Aviation Regulations (FAR). In 1987, Eastern Airlines was fined 9.5 million dollars, the highest at that time before american airlines in 2010, for a variety of violations, including noncompliance of airworthiness directives. Airworthiness directives (AD) are notification to operators about a deficiency within their certified equipment and must be fixed. It is mandatory for the operator, Eastern Airlines, to comply with the AD otherwise their equipment is not airworthy. Even though the operator is at fault, FAA should be questioned for their inadequate oversight. According to the report many airworthiness directive noncompliances by the operator went undetected by the FAA inspectors during routine inspections. “One aircraft made over 10,000 flights while not in AD compliance.” Eastern Airlines were in a terrible state before the incidents losing money due to it competitors and strikes, eventually the fine
NAA around the world tend to find a different approach, especially those who establish their standards based by European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). EASA formed in 15 July 2002, is a regulatory authority within the european union. It works with european NAA and non european NAA members in the interest of aviation standardization in the field of safety. In a recent and similar event to that of Eastern 727, Airbus instructed A380 operators to conduct more frequent checks on the wings after finding cracks due to metal fatigue. Again it was not a regulatory authority, EASA, who discovered the crack but the aircraft manufacturer. The difference being the cracks were not found on an aging aircraft, but to a new aircraft which was introduced in 2007. First AD was issued by EASA (reference) in 2008, which indicated the cracks if not fixed could lead to the detachment of that part in flight which might result injuries to persons on the ground. Different from FAA, EASA kept monitoring operators and working with the manufacturer coming up with revised AD up till this day, latest being in 2014. Operators affected by this part defect are Emirates, Qantas, Singapore, Air France, and Airbus. Qantas even temporarily grounded their A380 fleet as a extra precaution. Other than the AD, non of those preventive actions were