Cessnas Crash, but Agencies Do Nothing
Part maker's urgent plea fails to move regulators
Plain Dealer – March 4, 1993
SERIES: DEADLY DELAYS – RED TAPE COST LIVES
Last of a five-part series
By KEITH C. EPSTEIN
PLAIN DEALER REPORTER
LUSBY, MD.
One clear spring evening last May, 61-year-old Howard Dennis offered to take two friends up in his new single-engine plane to show them vistas of the Chesapeake Bay.
Dennis’ wife videotaped the flight as the Cessna 177 took off from the airstrip. It was a thrilling moment. Though retired, Dennis loved to fly, and he’d purchased the used aircraft only a month ago.
Suddenly, the engine sputtered and died. The plane quickly lost altitude and crashed into a gully where it exploded into flames. All three friends eventually perished.
Clinging to life when firefighters arrived, Dennis kept mumbling: “The engine quit on me. The engine quit on me.”
For three decades, Cessnas have been choking from a flaw in their carburetors known to the manufacturer, federal aviation officials, and repeatedly highlighted by the National Transportation Safety Board.
Yet until recently, many pilots had never heard of the problem, and the government required no fix. The fix isn’t required immediately; owners of the popular small planes have two years to install a replacement part costing $655.
Only in the last few months has Dennis’ widow received notices about the defect.
“It’s devastating,” she says. “You know, we would have been married 42 years this August. Sometimes, I still expect him to walk through the door at dinner time.”
As the safety board put it in January 1992 – four months before Dennis’ crash – the two-piece carburetor part, known as a primary venturi, has “a history of service difficulties.”
In 1963, the Federal Aviation Administration first noticed that on some Cessnas the venturi dislodged from the main carburetor body, causing “erratic engine operation or complete engine stoppage.”
The agency issued an advisory, an “airworthiness directive,” but for only one carburetor model. The carburetor manufacturer, Marvel-Schebler, made a replacement part for that model.
The accident reports began piling up:
In June 1984, while taking off at Lee’s Summit, Mo., Travis Miller noticed the engine “didn’t sound right.” He tried to abort the takeoff, overran the runway, destroyed his plane, but survived.
Cause: “The primary venturi … dislodged and jammed against the throttle valve.”
One month later, in West Plains, Mo., it happened to Carl E. Melton, whose love of planes went back to childhood days when he and his brother, Morgan, played with toy models.
As Morgan watched, Carl lost power on takeoff. The plane sputtered, banked almost vertical, then hurtled to the ground, killing him.
Again the safety board concluded: “The primary venturi … had not been properly seated in place.”
By 1985, there had been seven accidents and at least 26 instances in which the engine behaved oddly after landing or takeoff. Planes crashed into trees. Some pilots managed to land in open fields. One Cessna splashed into a lake.
Among causes cited in accident reports were loose venturis. Usually nobody was hurt.
But the safety board, unwilling to take chances, urged the FAA in March 1985 to require the manufacturer to design a replacement one-piece venturi and to require owners to install it.
The FAA vowed to propose a rule within 90 days, but did nothing. Two years later, it promised only to monitor the situation.
Owners groups fought the requirement. Pilots like Robert Brause, a Westlake retiree, unwilling to bear the extra cost, have long felt the issue was “just a conspiracy by the government to help a manufacturer increase sales.”
The safety board officially gave up. It categorized the FAA’s actions as “unacceptable,” and closed the matter.
But the manufacturer independently designed a new venturi. It was on the market by 1989.
“We saw a problem we wanted to get resolved, as our moral responsibility and because of product liability – the threat of lawsuits,” explains Randy Jenson, engineering manager at Precision Airmotive Corp., now responsible for the Marvel-Schebler product.
A year later, the company issued service bulletins urging repair shops to replace the old part. But that wouldn’t happen unless planes already had been brought in for carburetor repairs.
Around the same time, internal safety board documents show, investigators feared more accidents. The carburetors are in “thousands of general aviation aircraft engines,” safety officials wrote. “Existence of (the manufacturer’s) service bulletin is unknown” to most owners.
Potentially affected: as many as 21 different Cessna models, and a few other planes as well.
One safety board supervisor, Gregory Faith, explicitly urged higher-ups to demand that the FAA make the replacement parts “mandatory.”
Another year passed, but in September 1991, it happened a- gain.
One Saturday morning in West Chicago, as 40-year-old Dennis Schultz taught his 16-year-old daughter, Sandra, to take off, the engine sputtered and the plane crashed into a light pole and trailer in an industrial park. Both father and daughter died.
Cause: “The venturi … separated from … the carburetor and was ingested.”
One month later, the carburetor manufacturer urged the FAA to do something. The hazard couldn’t have been spelled out more clearly: “The old style two-piece venturis,” the company wrote, “constitute a significant safety … problem and must be removed from service.”
Two months later, the company’s tone grew more urgent; it implored that the new parts be installed “immediately.”
As carburetors get older, “such problems are likely to increase,” warned safety board Chairman James Kolstad in a strongly worded letter to the FAA in January 1992.
In March, the FAA agreed to “consider” a requirement. The next month, another safety board official criticized the FAA for taking too long. “Expedite your action,” pleaded Susan Coughlin.
In June, the FAA finally acknowledged the problem, citing accidents caused when venturis “separate … and … lodge” in the engine intake system.
The aviation agency promised to issue a directive for many models, requiring that the defect be fixed within 48 months. But a dispute over whether that was soon enough delayed the directive from being issued until November.
The government settled on two years – not soon enough for some.
“We consider it mandatory and there should be immediate compliance – before the next flight,” urges Precision Airmotive’s Jenson.
Meanwhile, safety board investigators finished their examination of Dennis’ crash: “The … two-piece venturi is suspected. The primary venturi was separated and missing.”
——-
Other stories from this series:
Deadly Delays: Bureaucracy is Killing Us – Long after wreckage is examined for clues, causes determined, and solutions urged – thousands of Americans still risk death or injury in similar accidents. (The Plain Dealer)
Ice on Jets – Recurring Risk, Tolerated for Years – Despite pinpointing causes of multiple commercial airliner crashes, Washington does nothing to require simple, proven remedies advocated for years
Flight 405: The Story of Four Passengers- Strangers on a plane, going about the routine business of flying, trusted that commercial aviation had become as safe as airlines and the government could make it. They were wrong.
Killer Trucks – Why the Slaughter Won’t Stop – Trucks with self-adjusting brakes would have fewer accidents, causing less damage and saving hundreds of lives. Yet the government dawdled in requiring them.
While Grownups Squabbled, Children Died – Battles between automakers and regulators for more than a decade stalled development of safer child seats.
Feds Shrug Off a Life-Saver for Commuter Planes – Commuter airline flights crashed repeatedly into the ground for lack of a simple device urged for years by federal safety officials. The FAA declined. Planes kept crashing.
Cessnas Crash, but Agencies Do Nothing - For decades, Cessnas chocked from a carburetor flaw known to the manufacturer and the government. Yet pilots had never heard of the problem, and the government required no fix.
Yellow Coffins – Modern school buses are among the safest means of transport. Yet when accidents occur, children are often trapped. Still, the government for years allowed preventable tragedies to recur.
Safety Board Has No Teeth – The National Transportation Safety Board is widely known for investigating accidents. What many people don’t realize is that it’s powerless – a toothless tiger.
