{"id":7069,"date":"2019-12-17T16:40:51","date_gmt":"2019-12-17T22:40:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planesintheair.com\/?p=7069"},"modified":"2019-12-17T16:40:51","modified_gmt":"2019-12-17T22:40:51","slug":"faa-must-boost-oversight-to-address-allegiant-air-maintenance-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/?p=7069","title":{"rendered":"FAA Must Boost Oversight to Address Allegiant Air Maintenance Issues"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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An Allegiant Air MD-83 passenger jet takes off from the Monterey airport<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) needs to improve its oversight to address maintenance issues at Allegiant Air, the 11th largest U.S. carrier, according to a report seen by Reuters on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. Transportation Department’s Inspector General, in a 31-page report sent to Capitol Hill on Tuesday but not yet made public, said FAA inspectors since 2011 have not “consistently documented risks associated with 36 Allegiant Air in-flight engine shutdowns for its MD-80 fleet or correctly assessed the root cause of maintenance issues.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultra-low cost Allegiant, a unit of Allegiant Travel Co, said it had not yet see the report and did not have an immediate comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The FAA said in a letter attached to the report that it agreed with eight of the nine recommendations made by the inspector general and partially agreed with the remaining one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Allegiant carried about 14 million passengers last year, serving 122 U.S. cities and Puerto Rico on 450 flight routes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The inspector general opened the probe in May 2018 after a “series of in-flight engine shutdowns, aborted takeoffs, and unscheduled landings” raised concerns about maintenance practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report said in-flight shutdowns at Allegiant “continued until July 2018 and were only resolved four months later when Allegiant Air retired the last of its MD-80 fleet.” Allegiant now flies an all Airbus fleet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report found in-flight engine shutdowns forced 21 Allegiant aircraft to return or divert to other airports between 2014 and 2018, but that regulators did not properly track engine shutdown risks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A 2015 maintenance provider failure at Allegiant Air demonstrated “severe violations that represent unacceptable safety risks or could result in catastrophic outcomes should also warrant a more stringent oversight approach,” the report said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The inspector general said the airline’s maintenance provider failed to insert a cotter pin on a critical flight control component that put some 30,000 passengers at risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report said in August 2015, a pilot “almost lost control of this aircraft during takeoff when it unexpectedly tried to lift off prematurely” but was able to abort takeoff and land safely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After inspectors proposed a 30-day suspension for Allegiant Air’s maintenance provider, FAA regional officials reduced the suspension to a compliance action. FAA inspectors closed out six of eight compliance actions before ensuring Allegiant Air actually took any corrective actions, the report found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also found that FAA does not provide inspectors with guidance and comprehensive training to ensure Allegiant Air takes appropriate corrective actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The FAA said it had “initiated compliance actions at Allegiant Air that have improved safety for the flying public.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Richard Chang and Bill Berkrot)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Airline passengers walk next to an Allegiant Air commercial flight near an air traffic control tower operated by Serco nc. at the Ogden-Hinckley Airport in Ogden<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) needs to improve its oversight to address maintenance issues at Allegiant Air, the 11th largest U.S. carrier, according to a report seen by Reuters on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[798,797,4813,89,5637,5992,2203,5500,4957,1397,868],"tags":[9411,5470,1690,539,47,420,901,8942,160,5205,9407,1925,9415,8944,1924,5851,1635,9408,335,177,2672,1483,2030,5237,5288,6220,4216,3242,5024,1843,1923,2510,491,6906,412,9414,9406,940,9410,960,8007,1288,9409,8664,719,8541,8748,9417,9412,1691,1658,1916,631,2926,1522,9413,7078,9416,1013],"class_list":["post-7069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-airbus-news","category-airline-news","category-airplane-news","category-aviation-news","category-business-news","category-economic-news","category-finance-news","category-frequent-flyer-news","category-global-politics","category-stock-news","category-transportation-news","tag-aborted","tag-address","tag-administration","tag-air","tag-airbus","tag-airline","tag-allegiant","tag-associated","tag-aviation","tag-boost","tag-capitol","tag-carrier","tag-catastrophic","tag-cause","tag-cost","tag-d-c","tag-department","tag-documented","tag-engine","tag-faa","tag-federal","tag-fleet","tag-general","tag-hill","tag-improve","tag-in-flight","tag-inspector","tag-issues","tag-landings","tag-largest","tag-low","tag-maintenance","tag-md-80","tag-must","tag-news","tag-outcomes","tag-oversight","tag-pilot","tag-puerto-rico","tag-report","tag-retired","tag-reuters","tag-risks","tag-root","tag-routes","tag-severe","tag-shutdowns","tag-stringent","tag-takeoffs","tag-transport","tag-transportation","tag-travel","tag-u-s","tag-ultra","tag-unit","tag-unscheduled","tag-violations","tag-warrant","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7069"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7072,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7069\/revisions\/7072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}