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FAA says it will review Eclipse very light jets
Unusual move comes after reports of safety problems
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WASHINGTON - Federal aviation officials said Wednesday they are conducting an unusual 30-day review of the Eclipse 500 very light jets in response to reports of safety problems when the jets were certified for flight in 2006.
The Federal Aviation Administration said it put together a review team on Aug. 11 to look at the jets’ safety and certification, including issues that have been the subject of complaints from aircraft operators involving aircraft trim, flaps, screen blanking, and stall speeds.
In the last 10 years, the agency has conducted only six similar special reviews of a particular model of aircraft, said FAA spokeswoman Alison Duquette.
Eclipse Aviation of Albuquerque, N.M., the aircraft’s manufacturer, said it welcomes FAA’s review.
“Without a doubt, this special review will uncover what we already know — that the Eclipse 500 marks the safest new airplane introduction into service in 20 years,” said Roel Pieper, Eclipse’s CEO. “Customer safety has always been a priority at Eclipse, and we look forward to this investigation dispelling any inaccuracies about the certification of this airplane for once and for all.”
The review comes as the FAA is facing scrutiny from Congress and Transportation Department Inspector General Calvin Scovel regarding its certification of the jets.
“The question is whether FAA did what it’s supposed to do in certifying this jet,” said Jim Berard, a spokesman for the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which has scheduled a Sept. 17 hearing on the issue.
Scovel, who is also investigating the manner in which FAA approved the jets, is expected to testify.
The union representing FAA’s certification engineers, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, filed a grievance after the jets were certified, contending the approval came despite outstanding safety and regulatory issues.
Tomaso DiPaolo, the NATCA national representative for aircraft certification engineers, said FAA managers came into work on Sept. 30, 2006 — the last day of the federal fiscal year — even though it was a Saturday to order the Eclipse be certified for flight over the objections of engineers who were still testing the plane.
“It was very unusual,” DiPaolo said. “Typically FAA managers don’t make a move unless you have a cadre of engineers willing to approve a design.”
Afterward, several of the engineers who objected to the Eclipse certification were denied pay raises, DiPaolo said.
On June 12, the National Transportation Safety Board sent FAA an urgent recommendation that it inspect all Eclipse 500 throttles and require the company to immediately develop an emergency procedure for dual engine control failure on the aircraft. The recommendation arose from a June 5 emergency landing by an Eclipse 500 at Chicago’s Midway Airport.
Safety officials said the plane in Chicago developed its problem after only 238 hours of flight, and had it not been for the resourcefulness of the pilots, good weather and the plane’s proximity to Midway, it probably would have crashed. The two pilots and two passengers were unhurt; two landing gear tires were flattened.
FAA ordered the throttle inspections, but DiPaolo described them as perfunctory at best.
“It was pretty laughable,” DiPaolo said. “They were telling the pilots to inspect the throttle quadrants, but they aren’t engineers. ... It was like telling them to do something for the sake of it doing it.”
Eclipse’s Pieper replaced the cash-strapped jet manufacturer’s founder, Vern Raburn, as CEO last month. Raburn, a former software executive and one of the early employees of Microsoft Corp., raised at least $1 billion from investors — including Microsoft founder Bill Gates — to start Eclipse in 1998.
The company’s goal was to produce light, inexpensive jets that carry a maximum of five passengers and become an air-taxi service for the masses.
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