MD-80 Groundings Fuss

American Airlines MD 80 wiring issue




Here's something you won't see or hear on TV about the true facts of the issue. This info was past along to my by my dad.


This is a photo of the wiring bundle that has grounded so many AA flight the past several days. The FAA came out with a maintenance directive over a year ago that stated the wire ties must be one inch apart. The AA maintenance managers determined that AA's MD 80's were close enough to 1 inch as shown in the photo and did not change the spacing of the wire ties.

Some MD 80 did come from the factory with wire ties spaced 4-8 inches apart and that prompted the FAA directive that warned of possible chaffing and a potential fire hazard. The deadline to comply with this directive was last week.


The FAA says no way to the above spacing and grounded our entire MD 80 fleet.


We operate over 300 MD 80's and have canceled 700-1000 flights a day!


The FAA was really beat up in a congressional hearing last week by several FAA inspectors who told congress that they were forced by their supervisors to ignore discrepancies they found on Southwest Airlines B 737's. The inspectors were from the same regional office that inspects American Airlines and so now the FAA is proving that NOTHING will get by their inspectors. So, the FAA inspectors are grounding planes that have spacing of anything more than + or -.125"


I honestly do not think this is a safety issue but simply revenge from the FAA from being so embarrassed on Capital Hill. There is just no way that the spacing of the wire ties in the above photo would be more of a fire hazard than wire ties spaces 1" apart but.........

Fascinating stuff. Are those your dad's words & picture, or were you just saying that your dad forwarded a link to an article to you?

It is BS, I'm sorry to say.

The FAA is making it impossible for air carriers to operate-soon there will be no American airline companies :sigh:

binky said:

Fascinating stuff. Are those your dad's words & picture, or were you just saying that your dad forwarded a link to an article to you?

Click to expand...

Apparently a friend in his driving club had this info and passed it along to him after they were discussing it for some time. It sounds fairly typical though doesn't it.

e2x2e said:

It is BS, I'm sorry to say.

The FAA is making it impossible for air carriers to operate-soon there will be no American airline companies :sigh:

Click to expand...

You mean it's bs how the FAA is handling things or the story isn't accurate. I would certainly agree that the FAA is a good example of something intended for good....gone wrong..

The way the FAA is handling this "issue"(or should I say nonissue?)

I think that the FAA handled this acceptably. Imagine what the fallout would have been if there had been an accident. If the specs say that the ties have to be one inch apart to prevent chafing>exposed conductor>shorting>fire, and there are MD-80s leaving the factory with ties at 4-8 inches, there's a hazard. Even in the provided picture, the ties in the background are spaced at what looks to be approximately two inches apart.

The grounding certainly was an inconvenience, but much better than an accident in the air.

I don't agree that it was handled acceptably. That regional office had their feelings hurt and they decided to play hardball in order to prove a point following the hand slapping they received. It was purely political. The MD-80 has been in service for 28 years without an issue related to wire tie spacing. Now because of politics, businesses are hurt and people are tremendously inconvenienced by some FAA official's sour attitude. There are different ways to handle scenarios like this which would bring the airlines to compliance while still allowing them to continue flying in the meantime. It's done every day in the industry for issues that aren't real issues. It would be like getting a ticket from officer friendly for a tiny pit in the windshield of your car. Can he technically ticket you? ....sure! Is it right that he should? ....of course not.

The way I see it, it's just another abuse of government power. What else is new? :ironic:

Who actually owns AA ? I recall the employees' kept it afloat at one point.

I think it was probably appropriate. They gave them a year to do the inspepctions, and the airlines let that time slip past them. When companies defy their regulators, a firm line must be enforced.

If you think that's drastic...

Watched a TV show where they discussed steps being taken to clean the air in Bejing before the Olympics. Factories were given instructions. Some were slow to comply, so they were told to shut down. Some refused to shutdown.

The factories were blown up with dynamite. They pollute no more.

I'd say that the FAA was not TOO drastic.

Daniel