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More Safety Checks For Bombardier Jets - WSJ.com

More Safety Checks For Bombardier Jets

By ANDY PASZTOR

LOS ANGELES -- U.S. regulators proposed further inspections and pilot training affecting hundreds of older-model Bombardier Inc. aircraft, acknowledging that earlier directives failed to alleviate flight hazards on the popular regional jets.

The Federal Aviation Administration said that an earlier round of changes in maintenance, pilot training and dispatching practices "was not effective in reducing the number of flap failures" on the twin-engine aircraft. Those mandates and tight operating restrictions in cold weather were issued by U.S. and Canadian regulators starting in the summer of 2007. The goal was to eliminate persistent failures of flaps, the movable panels at the rear of the wings that are extended for additional lift during takeoffs and landings.

Now, the FAA is proposing further safety checks ranging from inspection and replacement of certain parts to new simulator-training exercises.

The FAA also seeks to clarify speed and other flight restrictions for pilots in case of a flap malfunction. The proposal covers more than 680 aircraft in the U.S.

Eventually, a total of almost 1,000 older model Bombardier CRJ models world-wide are likely to face the same mandates.

Separately, the the FAA downgraded the Israeli government's air-safety oversight system to unacceptable, effectively barring the country's airlines from expanding service to or from the U.S.

The move, which had been expected, comes after a July assessment by the FAA that found oversight problems affecting airport operations, according to industry and U.S. government officials.

Write to Andy Pasztor at [email protected]

DublinFlyer

Could someone please explain this crap to me? I started that other thread recently about the 200 flaps, but I was under the impression the flap motors and stuff were all being replaced. I've never had a problem with flaps (with the exception of flaps/slats halfspeed on the 700). Is this a design problem, or a flap motor problem? I fly the bugger and I still don't know all the details.

John Pennekamp

Here comes another round of ADs.

Before long, the FAA will have redesigned the entire airplane through ADs. The CRJ-200 is a piece of junk.

saab2000

That's the truth. Yesterday I flew on a Mesa CRJ-700 and it felt so much more like a 'real' airplane than the -200 feels.

I wonder if a re-design that would go so far as making the flaps hydraulic would help.

Are the flaps on the -700/900 hydraulic? Stupid question, I know, but my carrier only operates the 200s.

DublinFlyer

Ah no, they still have the electric motors. I would guess they are pretty different just because of the added slats. Who knows though.

And quit knocking on my barbie jet. I love that darn 200 so much! It's my favorite. Although I do try to only fly the 700s during the summer though.

flyandive

The problem with the 100/200 is it uses a flexible drive shaft driven by a single electric motor under the fuselage with brakes at the end of the drive shaft to hold it in each position. The drive shaft tends to twist as it moves along the length of the wing which in turn twists the flaps. The 700/900 uses a torque tube in stead of a flexible drive cable so it can not twist. It has one (dual channel?) motor for the flaps and one for the slats. So in essence the design is the same but the 700/900 uses a metal control rod to manipulate the actuators instead of a cable. H46Bubba can probably elaborate.

DublinFlyer

So could we be possibly looking at a recall for all 200's to redesign the flap system in the future? I understand that would be awfully expensive, but if we have any more flap fails the Feds may require something like that.

What do you guys think the end result will be? It seems to me there has been a lot more talk about these flaps in recent times than in the past.

flyandive

Don't know about everyone else, but Comair installed the skew detection system that compared the rate of extension and retraction between the outboard section of each flap and the inboard section. If it was at all different it would cut power to the motor and engage the brakes, generating the "FLAPS FAIL" caution. This prevented a twist to fully develop but it also eliminated the need to preflight the flaps in the takeoff position. However, it also meant we got a lot more flap failures.

In addition because of an incident with a Jazz flight we had the whole flap fail diversion alternate procedure, etc etc. One of the requirements was if the weather was close to minimums at the destination we could not extend the flaps unless we could make it to a "flap alternate," with the flaps down.

Confused

I love when you get the call from scheduling tryin to reroute you to do a repo on a plane with broken flaps. I almost feel like cryin as we scream along at 15000 with flaps 8 goin 215 KIAS burning more gas than I would ever like to admit.

You ask why the dont send mechanics to fix it at the out station and of course they come up with some BS reason.

F'n flaps.

DublinFlyer

I've never heard about that system before. So what's the point of that system anyways? Does it just prevent one flap from going down farther than the other? I've only heard of the flaps just getting stuck down in one position or not coming down at all. I should probably read more into this, and become more familiar with some previous situations that have happened. I probably sound like an idiot.