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FAA scorns British Airways for serious safety breech

Sept. 15, 2014, Dallas, Tx. - Regulators say that British Airways violated safety rules by shipping an oxygen generator on an American Airlines flight from London to Dallas, and they are seeking to fine BA $195,000.


September 15, 2014  By The Associated Press

The Federal Aviation Administration said Friday that the chemical
oxygen generator was in a cardboard box without any markings to describe
its contents. The device was shipped to a Boeing repair shop in Texas
in 2012.

 

Oxygen generators produce oxygen for emergency masks in
case of a loss of cabin pressure. They have been banned as cargo on
passenger flights since the 1996 fire and crash of a ValuJet plane in
the Florida Everglades that killed 110 people.

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The FAA charged that British
Airways failed to declare and label the generator as hazardous and
suitable for shipment only on a cargo plane. It also said that BAA
employees who handled it lacked required training for shipping hazardous
materials.

 

The FAA did not announce any action
against American over the undeclared shipment, nor did it disclose how
it learned of the shipment.

 

A spokeswoman for British Airways said the airline was co-operating with the FAA and requested a meeting with regulators.

 

Separately, the FAA proposed to fine
American Eagle $60,000 for a contractor's use of improperly trained or
unqualified workers to de-ice planes in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in
late 2013. The airline, now called Envoy Air, is scheduled to meet with
the FAA next month.

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