Blaming the FAA

Burton blasts Bond on DC-lOs

As the hearing went on, the chairman began raging at the bland, measured responses of Federal Aviation Administrator Langhorne Bond. The more he heard, the angrier waxed California Congressman John Burton, chairman of a House subcommittee on transportation. The result was a hot clash on an urgent question that demands cold analysis if it is to be resolved: Has the FAA done all that it can and should do to prevent another DC-10 air disaster?

"There appears to be too little ability in the FAA to deal with a crisis such as the DC-10 crash," Burton charged, referring to the deaths, now placed at 273, near Chicago's O'Hare International Airport on the Memorial Day weekend. Unruffled, Bond read a twelve-page statement recounting his agency's actions since the accident and concluding: "I sincerely believe, Mr. Chairman, that we have acted responsibly and promptly to assure the safety of the flying public."

Waving his glasses and glaring, Burton accused Bond of moving too slowly to ground the DC-10. At one point, Burton rose from his chair and shouted, "Jesus Christ, just who is in charge over there anyway?" Later the chairman produced a copy of a report from the FAA's regional office in Los Angeles, dated June 1, which noted that the flange on the aft bulkhead of the engine pylon--a part suspect in the DC-10 crash--may have cracked under stress. Bond admitted he had not seen the report. Burton stood again and declared acidly, "It would be helpful to the public if you read your own documents where they relate to the public's safety."

If Bond was hectored by the committee, his performance, bordering at times on the evasive, added to the growing suspicion in the aviation community that the FAA, for all its vigilance in the past, had not been properly supervising the maintenance procedures used on the DC-10. Before appearing on the Hill, Bond ordered a precautionary inspection of the engine pylon mountings on three other wide-bodied jets operated in the U.S.: the Boeing 747, Lockheed L-1011 TriStar and the European-built A300 Airbus.

Bond's--and the FAA's--problems are far from over. This week Burton's subcommittee will call Bond to testify about the DC-10's hydraulic system, thought to have played a critical role in the crash. Later, a House aviation subcommittee will begin hearings into the development of the plane that caused the nation's biggest air disaster. Properly conducted, the hearings may reveal a great deal about the weaknesses of the FAA, as well as the DC-10.

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