U.S. airlines assign crucial repair work to outside maintenance centers, including overseas facilities, that haven’t been inspected by U.S. regulators and make safety errors, a government inspector general has found.
The Federal Aviation Administration and six carriers didn’t properly oversee the centers, Transportation Department Inspector General Kenneth Mead said in a report Monday.
Carriers visited by Mead were American Airlines, Continental Airlines, AirTran Holdings, Frontier Airlines, American Eagle and ExpressJet Holdings, a Continental Express carrier. Mead didn’t identify carriers in examples he cited in the report.
The FAA hadn’t checked six of the 10 centers Mead’s office visited, and errors were found, including improper maintenance on a switch that might have resulted in an engine failing to restart during flight, he said.
“Neither FAA nor the air carriers were providing adequate oversight of the work,” Mead said in the report released in Washington.
U.S. airlines spend about $4.9 billion a year on maintenance, and about half of all work is done by outside companies.
Mead focused his review on outside vendors that aren’t certified by the FAA. Airlines are allowed to use such centers if the work being done is approved by a mechanic who has FAA certification.
Frontier Airlines said it uses uncertified maintenance vendors for about 14 percent of its outsourced maintenance, usually on-call maintenance outside of its Denver hub.
Frontier contracts out maintenance at about 80 percent of its stations beyond Denver and may use uncertified vendors for small jobs or for work in places where the selection of maintenance vendors is limited.
Staff writer Kelly Yamanouchi contributed to this report.
