I know a lot of you want to blame this on Bedford and his style of business, but look at the facts a little more thoughtfully. CHQ has not had a history of missed Mx inspections on any of the Embraers. RAH in general has received MX oversight and support from Embraer for years, and have not had any major issues like we see here with the CRJ. Now consider that the CRJ was a brand new fleet type to RAH, with a 2 year lifespan on property, and that the planes used were very old hulls out of storage. If you read the article closely, you will see that the violation period refers to 2007, the year the CRJ's were first added to the RAH fleet. I will be the first to call shennanigans on BB when he deserves it, but this really appears to be a case of CHQ just not getting a proper Mx control program in place from Day One on the CRJ type. Perhaps a real low cost vendor was chosen, or perhaps they chose the wrong person in-house to verify what AD's these particular CRJ's were subject to, or perhaps someone chose the incorrect start point for calculating the start of the AD compliance cycle, but I am quite certain that this was a simple oversight. New fleet to the company, new fleet to the mechanics, new maintenance software, and a tracking error in the first year of operations...sounds more like an honest mistake to me. The system worked, the oversight was caught, and discipline was taken. Move on.

And it all happened because BB came in counting on the ERJs from XE. I don't know if CAL mislead him, or he just didn't care. Either way, once they (CAL and BB) found out XE was keeping the ERJs BB went out and brought these POS sand filled CRJs from the desert.

Seems it was avoidable.

Finally somebody gets the picture (or part of it). You talk about a competitive edge, I'm sure the conversation went something like this: "Well XJT is not putting out, let's pull the cheapest, oldest aircraft we can find. Oh, and don't worry about the maintenance too much, we'll be flying 70 seats for CAL in no time!". What surprises me is the fact that it was also the ERJ's. What kind of circus are those guys running?

It's naive at best to think that every penny is not accounted for at any regional, RAH is no exception. If you read the FAA report, there's no way this was a clerical error, too many coincidences, management knew about this.

Seems like you might be wrong. How does your conspiracy theory explain that Southwest is at the top of this list of Maintenance fines, and Republic and Mesa, for example, are at the bottom?

Airline/ Total fines/ Fines/Warnings2

Southwest /$7,500,000 /1/ 91
American /$5,864,0003 /12/ 214
US Airways/ $5,653,5004/ 3/ 52
United /$3,906,7505 /7 /36
American Eagle /$2,002,000/ 23/ 80
Alaska/$1,117,000 /36/ 98
Northwest /$690,550/ 6/ 161
Frontier /$369,500 /14 /18
Atlantic Southeast /$250,000/ 1/ 6
Delta /$145,500/ 3/ 28
JetBlue /$126,000 /4/ 9
ExpressJet/ $98,600/ 10/ 47
Mesaba /$78,250/ 6/ 47
PSA /$73,000/ 2/ 6
Hawaiian/ $72,000/ 2/ 26
Horizon Air/ $52,500/ 2/ 20
Continental /$49,000/ 2/ 91
Chautauqua /$40,500/ 2/ 8
Air Wisconsin /$27,000 /3 /11
Pinnacle /$19,800 /1 /26
SkyWest /$14,500 /2 /26
Mesa /$6,500 /2 /32
AirTran/$4,000/ 1/ 12
Comair /$0/ 0/ 3
Republic /$0 /0 /7

FAA fines show extent of airline problems - USATODAY.com

That's a really weak argument Mr. Skywatch.

First you're equating a dollar amount to the severity of the violation, which as already proven, is a number picked by the administrator using a formula which neither you or I are privy to. The dollar amount clearly does not equate the risk.

You're using the typical management argument of look our fines are "in line with the rest of the industry", just like our pay.

Now let's look at the numbers that do matter:

8 CRJ's - Conducted more than 9,900 flights without the mandatory lower wing inspections.

2 CRJ's - Flown 231 flights and 61 hours without structural and electrical mandatory inspections.

1 CRJ - Flew more than 17,600 flights without it's mandatory engine inspections.

1 ERJ - Flew 43 days past the replacement date for it's inertial navigational unit.

Here's what you failed to mention in your previous post, when Eagle, SWA, AA were fined it was all for the same non-compliance item in each case. If you noticed the list above which came directly from the FAA you got 5 different inspections that were not complied with over the course of two years. What does that tell you about the management that does not hold it's maintenance department accountable?

Do you really feel comfortable knowing that you or your family could have been ridding in the back of one of these aircraft?

First off, lets drop the MR. After all, we are all friends here - you can just call me Skywatch.

Second, I was addressing your question - "Yet I ask again, how is it that other CRJ and ERJ carriers are able to comply without any "foul ups"?"

I am just pointing out that it seems like the FAA has fined a LOT of other CRJ and ERJ carriers for maintenance foul ups.

Am I saying it is OK? Nope. Am I saying I like it? Nope. I am merely pointing out that it does not seem that Chautauqua is the only carrier that has made mistakes in the past. It also does not seem to have anything to do with penny pinching management, as Mesa is at the bottom of the list. it also seems it does not have anything to do with BB, because his carrier is at the bottom of the list.

But, I get it, that kind of ruins the conspiracy theory and that spoils the funny. Sorry about that. In the future I will try to limit the amount of truth I inject into the conversation and try to focus more on emotional rants.

Speaking of emotional replies, you didn't address any of the points in the post. Kinda takes the air out of your perspective doesn't it?

The point is not who is right, but rather the fact that 5 different inspections were missed at CHQ over the course of 2 years, and collectively over 27000 flights were operated without the basic safety protections provided by such inspections. Where you and I will have to agree to disagree is whether management knew or not. I say the FAA answer that question though:

Well first all you homers need to look at the numbers... NO way that over a 15 month period ONE CRJ flew 17,600 segments.... thats like 39 flights a day... so FIRST somewhere the numbers are wrong.

now that said.. FINE the SOB's if they are not in compliance. Hell every airline out there has aircraft flying that have something amiss, either intentional or unintentional.

Just look at the number of fines and warnings, disregard the fine amounts.

Looks like the regionals are safer to fly on yet again.

If you thought I was emotional, I apologize. Internet debates rarely move my blood pressure. As far as addressing your points in your post, I have to admit I did not understand what your point was.

Personally, I thought my post addressed your argument fairly effectively, but maybe I misunderstood your point.

I thought you implied that CHQ management was evil because they purposely neglected required maintenance and then got caught. I thought that you reasoned this must be so because no one else gets caught. I pointed out that lots and lots and lots of other airlines got caught. I would have thought that would have slowed you down a little, but I was wrong. So I must have misunderstood what you were saying, because you are still arguing despite the fact that there are lots and lots of airlines out there that get fined by the FAA all the time. Pilots don't purposely bust altitudes, and I don't think mx purposely blows off maintenance. I believe at the end of the day, no airline is really that evil.

But I also believe that we really went to the moon, and I don't believe that DIA is the home of the new world order, so what do I know?