Southwest plane flew multiple times with wrong wheel bearing

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Southwest plane flew multiple times with wrong wheel bearing By ALEX LYDA Associated Press Writer

DALLAS (AP) -- Southwest Airlines has been fined $90,000 for operating a plane last September in an "unairworthy condition" after a wheel fell when the plane was taking off, the FAA said.

The plane -- the same model as one that ran off the runway and through a blast fence at the Glendale-Burbank-Pasadena Airport in California on Sunday -- flew on 46 flights with an improper bearing, which may have contributed to a wheel detaching from the aircraft's main landing gear during takeoff from the same Burbank, Calif., airport in early September, the Federal Aviation Administration said Tuesday.

In a letter to Southwest Airlines President Herb Kelleher, the agency said the main landing gear tire-wheel assembly was replaced by a vendor repair station at Chicago's Midway Airport in late August and that an FAA investigation in mid-September revealed that the wrong bearing had been used.

Southwest Airlines spokeswoman Beth Harbin said, "We take great pains to assure the quality of our aircraft, this (type of incident) is very rare. Our vendors must adhere to FAA rules.

"When we learned of the situation, we immediately contacted the FAA," she said.

Southwest has asked to meet with the FAA to discuss the fine, but hasn't heard back from the agency, Harbin said.

On Sunday, a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-300 with 142 people aboard barreled off the end of the Burbank runway and came to a halt in the middle of a street, narrowly missing a gasoline station.

The accident was the most serious in the airline's 29-year history. While 15 people reported some sort of injury, no one died.

The cockpit's voice recorder was removed and the NTSB began analyzing it in Washington on Tuesday, said Preston Hicks, regional director of the Southwest Regional Aviation office of the National Transportation Safety Board.

Preliminary findings showed the plane came in at a much steeper rate of descent than normal.

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), March 09, 2000


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