Some 70 Boeing airplanes operated by local airlines will be inspected to see if they are equipped with a potentially defective fuel pump, in line with a request from the US Federal Aviation Associa-tion (FAA), a local aviation official said yesterday.
The FAA issued an emergency directive to carriers about pumps designed for use in center-wing fuel tanks on Boeing aircraft, including the 737-600, -700, -700C, 800, and -900; 747; and 757 series airplanes certified as passenger or cargo aircraft, out of concern the the pumps could cause a fire or an explosion in the rare event that fuel tanks run dry.
"The notification came today [yesterday] and we'll start asking local airliners to conduct an overhaul of those Boeing aircraft models as instructed," director of the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) Billy Chang (
Chang said inspection work would be swiftly undertaken.
He said China Airlines (華航) -- which operates 35 Boeing aircraft including the B747, B400 and B737, EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空) -- which operates 28 Boeing aircraft including B747, B400, B757 and B767, and Far East Air Transport Corp (遠航) -- which oper-ates 7 Boeing 757 aircraft, are the affected local airlines.
Meanwhile, the FAA said yesterday that roughly 1,400 planes in the US fleet must be checked. Regulators believe only a small number of pumps are defective.
No mishaps are linked to the pumps, which were manufactured by Boeing supplier Hydro-Aire Inc, of Burbank, California.
"We're trying to prevent any incidents or accidents," Ron Wojnar, FAA deputy director of aircraft certification, said in a conference call with reporters.
Gregory Ward, Hydro-Aire president, said the defect was discovered just days ago when an inoperative pump was sent back to the manufacturer and inspected. The FAA said it received reports within that time frame of three pumps that simply stopped working.
A manufacturing flaw in a small number of pumps could allow wires to come into contact with a moving rotor, Ward confirmed. This could cause premature wear of the wires and possibly create sparks that could ignite fuel vapors.
Wojnar said the order covered 1,250 of the suspect Hydro-Aire pumps made since January and installed on aircraft or stored as spare parts. Unrelated changes in the manufacturing process eliminated the need to check more pumps, the FAA said. Boeing has so far identified 116 aircraft with the suspect pump model.
Wojnar said airlines have four days to determine if their planes are equipped with them. If they are, the near-term requirement is for crews to ensure that pumps remain submerged in fuel at all times. This mitigates the risk of vapor ignition. There are also new guidelines for using fuel from the center-wing tank. Airplanes also carry fuel in their wings.
The order also increases the minimum amount of fuel that should be in the center tank to make sure the pump remains covered even when the plane is not flying level. The FAA will explore a longer-term strategy for dealing with the pumps in the coming weeks.
Fuel pump safety received new scrutiny after the explosion of TWA Flight 800 in 1996. Investigators concluded that a possible wiring problem triggered that disaster.
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