But won’t say why the company is under scrutiny

The saga of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) looking the other way continues. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has asked the Department of Transportation Inspector General (DOT/IG) to investigate Eclipse Aviation. The company’s Eclipse EA500 ultra-light business jet was the subject of a 12 June 2008 emergency airworthiness directive (AD) concerning the throttles stuck on landing at full power (see Aviation Safety & Security Digest, Significant Regulatory & Related Activity, most recent archive). Our coverage of the emergency AD indicated:

“There is an unconfirmed report that FAA certification engineers filed a grievance against FAA management for pressure to speed the certification of the Eclipse. Certainly, the process by which the throttle quadrant was approved will be a subject of the NTSB [National Transportation Safety Board] investigation. The obvious question was whether this failure mode was discovered during certification, and if not, why not?”

The DOT/IG has opened the investigation, a committee spokesman acknowledged, but he was unable to provide details about the subject of the probe. “If there is enough evidence that will warrant action such as an oversight hearing,” he said, “we may go that route, but no decisions have been made.”

The investigation appears to stem from an October 2006 union grievance, filed by two FAA inspectors against managers at the FAA’s Ft. Worth certification offices, accusing the managers of granting the Eclipse 500 type certification on 30 September 2006, “without allowing the aircraft certification engineers and flight-test pilots to properly complete their assigned certification/safety responsibilities.” If so, this is a violation of Federal Aviation Regulations 21 and 23, Order 8110.4 and other related FAA orders and policies.

According to Tomaso Di Paulo, an official with the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), which represents the two FAA employees who filed the grievance, “They were told directly by management that their technical decisions had resulted in their not getting [a salary] increase.”

Di Paulo said, “The employees have informed me that they were not ready to approve that airplane design.”

Recall that the Ft. Worth certificate management office (CMO) has been under Committee scrutiny for being too “cozy” with American Airlines, and the DOT/IG has recently issued scathing reports of the CMO’s incestuous relationship with the carrier (see Aviation Safety & Security Digest, ‘Agency’s Oversight of Airline Safety Under Scrutiny,’ home page).

There have been suggestions that Eclipse managers’ bonuses were tied to certification goals and that certification of the Eclipse 500 on the last day of the FAA’s fiscal year – a Saturday – ensured that bonus targets were met.

“We know nothing” about the investigation said Eclipse president and CEO Vern Raburn. “The IG has not talked to us. The House [committee] hasn’t talked to us. The FAA has told us this is going on, but it has never said what it’s about, so we’re in the dark as to what these safety allegations are.”

The earliest any committee action could take place would be after the August congressional recess.