Stupid & Dangerous: FAA to Close LAX Inspection Office
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The huge Airbus A-380 starts arriving next year (bottom, versus an A-320). Imagine it with 37% fewer FAA inspections
How safe is flying out of LAX? Count the bad landings and near-misses lately, and consider this: It's about to become more than 37% less safe:
The FAA has decided to close the air-carrier inspection office based at LAX and move its 36 inspectors to Van Nuys and Long Beach. (Here's the memo.)
What does this mean? Inspectors who used to drive a mile and a half from the Flight Standards District Office to LAX to inspect aircraft for engine cracks and stress damage - and to review qualifications for pilots, mechanics and ground crews for all foreign and domestic airlines that come through LAX - are now going to spend a substantial portion of their workdays sitting in traffic on the 405 ...
So far - aside from a single report on aviation-specialty site AVWeb- the mainstream media in Los Angeles and elsewhere have completely missed this story.
And the AVWeb story blindly catches an FAA flack in what one veteran FAA inspector I spoke with today says is a bald-faced lie:
"No jobs are being lost nor is headcount being reduced; we are simply going to be moving our aviation inspectors closer to where the work is -- which is generally not at LAX but elsewhere in Southern California, FAA spokesman Donn Walker told AVweb.
In fact, my source says, the inspectors now based at LAX spend much of their time monitoring the safety of most foreign and domestic aircraft, flight crews and ground crews operating at LAX, my source says.
If all goes according to this ill-conceived plan to shut the LAX office, inspectors will be driving from the Valley and the LBZ - whatever the traffic - to do on-site inspections at LAX and then return to their far-flung offices to handle reports, email and phone calls.
Problem is, federal regs forbid inspectors to incur overtime and comp time on their 8-hour days. The FAA inspector I spoke to says this means he and his colleagues will have to arrive at LAX later and leave earlier than before - just to get to the site, do their inspections and file their reports before quitting time.
Inspectors will have to either rush their work, or cut inspections short just to beat the traffic and the clock.
"You're going to lose about 3 hours a day just being in traffic," he says.
LAX inspectors currently spend about 400 to 500 hours of their 2,000-hour work-years doing planned, on-site inspections.
The rest of the time not consumed by paperwork resulting from the inspections, or counter duty for checking paperwork and such is spent on un-scheduled inspections. The FAA conducts random pop-ins that include everything from reviewing crew manifests and making sure repair manuals are up-to-date to looking over the shoulder of mechanics as they replace parts and do scheduled maintenance on every part of the aircraft.
Ground crews are generally conscientious and airlines scrupulous about obeying maintenance regulations, says my source. But without the deterrent threat of pop inspections by the LAX-based FAA inspectors, he says, they may try to get away with doing less, and flying in and out of LAX unquestionably will become less safe.
Add the hourlong commute from Van Nuys or the 45 minutes from Long Beach to every single inspector trip to LAX - the FAA must field inspectors to every incident like September's spectacular JetBlue nosegear flameout - and all of a sudden this move to "consolidate" inspectors away from one of the busiest airports in the world seems criminally irresponsible.
Congress needs to look into this, the FAA should reconsider the decision, and the irresponsible pencil-pusher who thought it up should be fired.
Me? I'm not feeling so cheerful now about plans to fly east at Christmas. If you fly frequently for business, you should be even more concerned.
Posted by: Mack_Reed on Friday, November 18, 2005 - 12:44 PM
