FAA Aviation Maintenance Alerts

In the second emergency airworthiness directive in four days, the Federal Aviation Administration reduced the time allowed for inspecting the slat downstop assembly from 24 days to 10. Both directives were based on findings about the fire that destroyed a China Airlines 737 in Japan last month. FAA spokesman Les Dorr said the initial inspections this week had found two planes in which parts had come off the slat downstop assembly and were lying loose in the housing, including one in which the housing wall was damaged. [1] In light of the recent China Airlines plane fire in Japan, the Federal Aviation Administration has released an Airworthiness Directive (AD 2007-18-51; Docket No. FAA-2007-29089; Directorate Identifier 2007-NM-214-AD) that orders all U.S. airlines to perform emergency inspections of the new model Boeing 737 to check for loose hardware in slat panels that are extended on the wings to increase lift for take-off and landing. It is estimated that more than 780 planes registered to U.S. airlines are affected, with about 1,500 in service around the world.[2] TAIPEI - Taiwan's aviation authority Wednesday ordered all national airlines and the military to revise all Boeing 737 series planes, following a directive by the FAA, a senior official said. “All airlines here and the military are required to thoroughly check for loose bolts at the wing slats of their Boeing 737 series in 10 days in line with the FAA directive,” Civil Aeronautics Administration director Billy Chang said. The FAA issued the emergency air-worthiness directive following reports of 23 cases in which bolts on the wing slats of Boeing 737 series were found to have come loose, and one bolt even damaged the fuel tank of the jet owned by an unspecified airline, he added.[3] The FAA on Wednesday ordered checks on Boeing 737 aircraft worldwide to be completed within ten days, after a loose bolt caused a China Airlines 737-800 plane to explode after landing last week.[4]


Winslow: Life Raft; 46FA-AV (SA); Partial Inflation; ATA 2564 A repair station technician provides two reports in a span of eight days. Both describe the same defect on the same model raft, though specific aircraft application information was not included. Here, both reports have been combined. Winslow’s Director of Quality Assurance, Steven Saunders, provided their previously distributed service letter addressing an O-ring lubrication procedure. It follows this article. “The life raft partially (and inadvertently) inflated in the customer's aircraft....” “This ‘under the seat cushion’ (installation) could have possibly caused damage to the aircraft, injury to persons, or loss of aircraft control had the life-raft completely inflated in flight. This raft was removed from the aircraft cabin by the operator before it had completely inflated, minimizing the possibly of severe damage." (The part number for both reports is 46FASA-230-603