Horizon pilots raise concerns over plane

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Raises interesting questions about government and corporate attitudes regarding aircraft safety.

Horizon pilots raise concerns over plane

Both the airline and regulators dismiss the complaints and say the Fokker F-28 is safe to fly, despite one pilot's refusal to do so

Sunday, February 27, 2000

By Peter Sleeth of The Oregonian staff

Horizon Air -- the Northwest's largest regional airline -- suspended one of its top pilots after he refused to fly a commercial jet, saying it was potentially unsafe for the passengers and crew onboard. Instead of grounding the 69-seat, Fokker F-28 airplane after Capt. Richard "Buddy" Stewart raised safety concerns Feb. 11, the company assigned another Horizon pilot to fly it. Horizon officials said that Stewart's concerns were unfounded and that the plane was airworthy.

Four days later, on Feb. 15, another pilot grounded the same aircraft in Billings, Mont., because of mechanical problems that caused vibrations. Horizon mechanics had to ship an entire jet engine from the airline's Portland repair center by truck and replace the bad engine, according to company officials. It was not returned to service for five days. The plane, which carries the tail number N490US, is now in service again. Horizon has 22 Fokker F-28s to service five Western states and Canada.

Horizon and Alaska Airlines are affiliated, but the Fokker F-28 is a completely different type of airplane from the Alaska MD-83 that 'crashed last month off the California coast, killing all 88 people aboard.

Pilots have documented intermittent vibration problems with the Horizon plane 30 or more times since August, according to pilots, the pilots union and the company. Horizon said there was a six-month history of intermittent vibration problems in the plane -- vibrations that worried Stewart and other pilots -- but it was not serious, just an irritant for the pilots.

"If it was dangerous, we wouldn't let the plane fly," said Cheryl Temple, a spokeswoman for Horizon Air.

Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Mitch Barker said regulators were aware of the vibration reports with the Fokker F-28 and had been aware of pilot concerns for months. On one occasion, an FAA inspector flew on the aircraft and noticed no serious problem.

"It is not a safety problem. It is an annoyance," Barker said, adding that, despite some pilots' concerns, "We're the agency that oversees safety."

However, at least two Horizon pilots told The Oregonian that they also considered the plane potentially unsafe. One pilot said he had heavy vibration problems with the jet that "scared" the veteran pilot. Stewart declined comment. His suspension -- with pay -- was lifted shortly after he was sanctioned, a company spokeswoman said.

But, on Thursday, Horizon Air officials demoted Stewart from his status as a "check airman" -- a designation the FAA and airline companies confer on top pilots. A check airman is a senior pilot who is given evaluation responsibility over other pilots. He can remove them from service or grade them unsatisfactorily. It is the next highest level to a chief pilot.

The demotion occurred for reasons unrelated to his refusal to fly, Horizon Chief Executive Officer George Bagley said. In addition, he said, disagreement over the airworthiness of the plane was due to factors other than air safety.

"Here's what I think. I think it was a decent guy who is all wound up emotionally with several things and he made a judgment error," Bagley said.

Stewart is a union negotiator with the Teamsters union that represents Horizon pilots. Bagley maintained that Stewart has been under stress from struggling for two years to obtain a contract between the pilots union and Horizon. He said it was Stewart's behavior on the job that led to his demotion.

Don Treichler, an international representative for the Teamsters, said the demotion will be appealed. He dismissed the criticism of Stewart as "posturing."

"And furthermore, I believe contrary to George Bagley, these problems are all and completely safety-related," Treichler said.

When pilots note a problem with a plane, they report it in a maintenance log kept in the plane. A mechanic then fixes the problem and gives the go-ahead for the airplane to fly. It is like taking a car to a mechanic with a problem:

The customer orders the repair, it is made, and the car is back on the road.

However, the Fokker F-28 kept coming back with similar problems. None of the reported vibration problems show up in FAA records because airlines are not required to report every service difficulty. Even the replaced engine was not reported to the FAA, Temple said.

Both the FAA and Horizon Air maintain the plane has always been safe for commercial passenger traffic, despite its history of vibration problems.

Stewart was put back on duty to fly company jets prior to his demotion and is now certified to fly for Horizon, Treichler said.

The other two Horizon pilots spoke with The Oregonian only on the condition their identities remain secret. They said they feared retribution from the company and would agree to be identified only as captains, both with at least 20 years of experience as pilots.

The pilots said the Horizon aircraft's vibration was typically localized in the cockpit, sometimes in the control column used to steer the jet.

"It was one of the most insidious and dangerous things that can happen with an airframe. It is very dangerous for airplanes to have control flutter," said one Horizon pilot who has flown the plane.

The pilot said he wrote up the vibration problems last year and learned they had not been fixed only after Stewart refused to fly the plane.

"I was furious," the pilot said. He acknowledged that the crash of Alaska Flight 261 had made pilots more aware than ever of any potential problem with an airplane. He said he believed part of the problem with the Horizon jet was problems with the mechanical workings in the tail of the plane.

Bagley called the pilots' assertions ridiculous and blamed the dispute on contract negotiations.

"You're telling me that four to six pilots per day have flown this plane in a nonairworthy condition? Now how ridiculous is that? It's totally ridiculous. It indicts every F-28 pilot in our company, the FAA, every licensed mechanic in our company," he said Saturday.

Treichler, the pilots union representative, said the safety issues are unrelated to union negotiations. "The issues you're discussing in the newspaper have nothing to do with negotiations," he said. "They have to do with safety."

Teamsters Local 747 of the Teamsters Airline Division, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, began representing Horizon pilots in 1997. A federal mediator has now stepped in, and more negotiations are slated for March.

Bagley acknowledged the plane did need work in the past.

"There has been a lot of work done on that airplane. It has had, as I understand it, a significant number, a variety of things, all of which were repaired over that period of time," Bagley said. "Some people connected all these things together. They only connected these things all together after Capt. Stewart made this an issue."

Horizon's Temple acknowledged a series of maintenance problems with the aircraft, including an incident last summer in which mechanics dropped the plane on its nose during maintenance work, causing damage to the plane.

Both pilots who had filed maintenance reports on the Fokker F-28 jet said they now believe the plane has been adequately repaired.

"I believe that ultimately they got to the problem, but it took them an extraordinarily long time," said one of the pilots. "And I don't approve of the way they got to it."

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/00/02/st022705.html

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), February 27, 2000


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