NTSB investigators said mechanics working for a maintenance contractor incorrectly adjusted a flight-control system that contributed to the accident. The mechanics were certified, but the contractor wasn't, Scovel told a House subcommittee in 2007.
Outsourced repairs on rise
Cost-squeezed airlines also try to save money by farming out an increasing amount of maintenance work to foreign repair stations. The number of FAA-certified foreign repair stations increased from 344 in 1994 to 731 in 2009, according to Scovel.
FAA oversight of such stations is "weak at best," and more than 90% of "people turning the wrenches" at foreign repair stations are not certified mechanics, says Goglia, the former NTSB board member.
Unions representing certified airline mechanics, including the
Transport Workers Union of America and the
International Brotherhood of Teamsters, are angry about the loss of jobs to other countries and the quality of work abroad. In December in Washington, TWU mechanics distributed leaflets to members of Congress pointing out safety and security concerns with foreign repair work. The TWU thinks airlines "are fleeing federal oversight" and questions whether reliance on overseas repair work is "a disaster waiting to happen," says Robert Gless, assistant director of the union's Air Transport Division.
"Just because there's an absence of disaster, it doesn't mean you have a safe circumstance with overseas maintenance facilities," he says. "What does it take — one or two planes to fall out of the sky — to say, 'Why did this happen?' "
The FAA says there's no need to worry about work done abroad.
"Just as aviation safety is in no way compromised by allowing U.S. carriers to fly aircraft made in Europe, in Brazil or in Canada, safety is in no way compromised by allowing other countries' facilities, which perform to our safety standards, to conduct repair and maintenance on our aircraft," Doug Dalbey, an FAA deputy director, told a House subcommittee last November.
Besides maintenance issues, the inspector general's office found "security vulnerabilities" — including susceptibility to sabotage — at airport and off-airport repair stations.
Concerns are so great that since August 2008, Congress has barred the FAA from certifying any new foreign repair station until the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) issues a rule to improve security.
In November, the TSA said a proposed rule was open for comment. Congress has also introduced bills to close regulatory gaps between foreign and domestic repair stations.
Lax oversight 'raises risk'
Shoddy work or failure to do repairs can often go undetected because of inconsistent or ineffective FAA and airline oversight.
In November, Scovel told a House subcommittee that it "may be months or even years" before FAA inspectors do an on-site review of a repair station after it's approved for use by an airline.
FAA inspectors for an unidentified airline inspected only four of the carrier's 15 main maintenance providers during a three-year period. And a major engine repair facility abroad, which worked on 39 of 53 engines repaired for an airline, wasn't visited by FAA inspectors for five years after the facility was certified.
"As a result of FAA's flawed approval and untimely inspection processes, maintenance problems either went undetected or reoccurred," the inspector general said.
Scovel said his office made 23 recommendations to improve FAA oversight of domestic and foreign repair stations during the previous seven years. Sixteen have not been addressed — including "a number" that "are critical."
