Maintenance Issues

How do travelers know if airplanes are being properly maintained?
The very nature of aviation — high-speed machines carrying people high above the ground — spurs a tremendous emphasis on preventative maintenance. What’s more, airplane makers anticipate potential equipment failures when they design aircraft — building in layers of redundant, back-up safety systems for all key airplane features.

There are good reasons for air travelers to feel confident that the aircraft they are flying are well maintained. Airlines, aircraft manufacturers, and government regulators jointly work out detailed, scheduled maintenance programs designed to avoid and catch problems before they become serious enough to jeopardize an aircraft’s ability to fly safely.

In addition, flight crews and on-board computer systems monitor aircraft performance for any problems, and those problems that pose a safety threat are corrected before further flight. As an added layer of protection for the flying public, government regulators monitor airline maintenance activities to ensure compliance. Regulators can impose heavy fines, or even ground an airline, for violations.

What kind of maintenance steps do airlines take?
There are two basic types of maintenance: scheduled maintenance, and unscheduled work focused on correcting faults that have occurred. For scheduled inspections, government regulators require increasingly detailed work, some of it tied to a plane’s age, its flying time, and the number of flights it has made. At each step in the process, mechanics probe deeper and deeper into an aircraft, taking apart more and more components for closer inspection.

• Regulators give airlines some flexibility in their maintenance programs, but a typical program looks something like this:
• Several times a day, airline personnel do a visual "walk around," checking for fluid leaks, cracks, dents, or other surface problems.
• Every three to five days, they inspect a plane’s surface controls (e.g. flaps and rudders), landing gear, fluid levels, oxygen systems, lighting, and auxiliary power systems.
• Every eight months the internal control systems, hydraulic systems, and emergency equipment within the cockpit and cabin are thoroughly inspected.
• Crews open up the aircraft every 12 to 17 months and use sophisticated devices to probe for wear, corrosion, and cracks that can’t be seen with the naked eye.
• And every three to five years, each airplane basically is taken apart and put back together, with major components and systems replaced as needed.

Has deregulation made flying riskier?
No. In fact, flying has gotten considerably safer since the United States deregulated airfares and flight routes in 1978. In the 15 years leading up to deregulation, domestic airlines averaged one fatal accident for every 818,000 flights. In the 15 years following deregulation, U.S. airlines averaged a fatal accident every 1.8 million flights. Since 1990, the accident rate has dropped even further to one per 2.2 million flights.

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