WASHINGTON — A federal safety inspector assigned to the airline involved in an air crash that killed 50 people in upstate New York in February warned of safety problems at the airline a year before the accident.
An attorney for Federal Aviation Administration inspector Christopher Monteleon said he reported problems with the flight-testing program at Colgan Air of Manassas, Va., for its newly acquired Bombardier Dash 8-Q400s in January 2008. That’s the same type of plane that crashed Feb. 12 near Buffalo Niagara International Airport.
Among the problems Monteleon reported was that the Colgan test pilot exceeded the permissible speed limit for the Dash 8 and had difficulty properly landing the plane.
After Colgan, a regional carrier, complained to the FAA about Monteleon, his FAA supervisor reassigned him to desk work and ordered him to have no further contact with the airline, his attorney, Debra Katz, said.
When Monteleon continued to press for action on safety concerns at Colgan and what he alleged was a cozy relationship between the agency and the airline, he was transferred or reassigned three more times, Katz said.
In March, Monteleon had a confrontation with an FAA attorney and was placed on administrative leave by the agency, Katz said.
Monteleon has filed a complaint with the federal Office of Special Counsel, which investigates whistle-blower complaints, Katz said.
FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown declined to discuss personnel actions taken involving Monteleon. She said his complaints about safety violations at Colgan were investigated by a special FAA team, which found some record-keeping and other problems but no violations of safety regulations.
