Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC
US FEDERAL AVIATION Administration concern over the effect on ValuJet's safety of its rapid expansion forced the carrier to rein back planned growth almost four months before the McDonnell Douglas DC-9-30 crash in Florida on 11 May, documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act have revealed.
A letter dated 29 February demands that ValuJet must gain FAA approval before any further expansion of its fleet or route structure can be implemented.
At the time, neither the Atlanta-based carrier nor the FAA revealed the restriction. ValuJet announced that it was slowing its growth, but attributed this to needing to "-smooth out some rough edges" and improve its flight-operations and maintenance programmes (Flight International, 17-23 April).
The airline, which started in late 1993 with two DC-9s, had planned to add between 18 and 24 aircraft this year, but restricted that to 14 because of the FAA concerns. Even with the cuts, the fleet was due to total 54 aircraft by December.
The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), meanwhile, in the light of the fact that a hazardous-cargo fire may have caused the Florida accident (Flight International, 5-11 June), has urged the FAA to evaluate airline practices for accepting and searching passenger baggage and freight shipments to prevent unauthorised shipments of dangerous materials.
The FAA has previously turned a deaf ear to an NTSB recommendation for fire/smoke detectors in cargo holds, so the Safety Board now says that it wants to prohibit the transport of oxidisers and oxidising materials (for example, nitric acid) in cargo compartments without detectors.
The cockpit-voice recorder from the crashed DC-9-30 shows that the pilots reacted within 11s of hearing "a brief unidentified sound", believed possibly to have been an explosion in the cargo hold and, within 28s, gained clearance to return to Miami.
nThe impact of the crash and ValuJet's subsequent halving of flights, have begun to show through in the airline's traffic figures for May. Passenger numbers dropped by 7.4%, marking the first setback in the carrier's otherwise-meteoric growth rates.
Source: Flight International
