Jul 16, 2008 12:00 pm US/Eastern
New Rule Seeks To Prevent Flight 800-Type Tragedy
ASHBURN, Va. (AP) ―
Federal transportation officials announced a new rule Wednesday aimed at preventing fuel tank explosions like the one that destroyed TWA Flight 800 almost exactly 12 years ago.
The new rule, unveiled by Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, applies to new passenger and cargo planes that have center wing fuel tanks like TWA 800, a Boeing 747, which exploded over the Atlantic off Long Island on July 17, 1996, after takeoff from New York's Kennedy Airport. All 230 aboard the Paris-bound airliner were killed.
The rule also requires airlines to retrofit 2,730 existing Airbus and Boeing passenger planes with center wing fuel tanks with the changes. The retrofit schedule is based on the normal aircraft maintenance schedule.
The change brings to a close a long and troubled chapter in federal aviation safety. The National Transportation Safety Board identified the cause of the explosion -- the ignition of oxygen in a partially empty fuel tank that had been sitting for hours in the sun before takeoff -- not long after the accident. The Federal Aviation Administration proposed a rule to prevent future explosions in 2005, but the aviation industry balked, saying the cost was too high.
The final rule requires aircraft manufacturers and passenger airlines to install devices that replace oxygen, which is highly explosive, with inert nitrogen in fuel tanks as they empty.
"We believe this will save lives," said NTSB Chairman Mark Rosenker, who joined Peters at a press conference at the safety board's training facility here, where TWA Flight 800 has been partially reconstructed from pieces of the aircraft retrieved from the ocean. "This is the big one for us as it relates to important solutions for fuel tank safety."
But Matt Ziemkiewicz of Rutherford, N.J, whose sister was a flight attendant aboard TWA Flight 800, said he was "disappointed this didn't happen sooner ... We knew this was a preventable accident before Flight 800."
However, Ziemkiewicz, who has led victims' families in seeking safety changes, said he was satisfied the new rule is "reasonable and realistic."
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