Safety board accuses FAA of stalling on tank safety

WASHINGTON – Nine years after TWA Flight 800 exploded off the coast of Long Island, the National Transportation Safety Board accused the government Wednesday of dragging its feet on new requirements designed to prevent another fuel tank explosion.

“We’re not significantly different than we were in ‘96,” said Dan Campbell, executive director of the NTSB, which spent four years investigating the July 17, 1996, crash of the Boeing 747. The explosion killed 230 people.

In a briefing to reporters, Campbell noted that while the Federal Aviation Administration has made significant progress in fixing problems that could cause sparks inside a flammable fuel tank, the agency has yet to propose a rule promised in February 2004 that would prevent the buildup of flammable vapors in the first place.

The FAA says it plans to require devices that replace some of the oxygen in fuel tanks with nitrogen, making the vapors less explosive. That retrofit – estimated to cost more than $600 million for the U.S. fleet – is being fought behind the scenes by airlines, sources say.

Aircraft fuel tanks – particularly the center tanks, located near sources of heat – are often filled with flammable vapors. A spark can ignite those vapors, which can create an explosion that can rip apart the airplane. Before Flight 800, the FAA had a philosophy of building in safety by trying to keep ignition sources out of the tank – but has since taken the position that the flammable vapors must also be minimized.

In the case of Flight 800, investigators suspect that damaged wiring ignited the vapors, but that was never proved.