By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) late on Wednesday said it was mandating U.S. DHC-3 operators quickly conduct inspections after a fatal crash in Washington state killed 10 in September.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) last week issued an “urgent safety recommendation” asking the FAA and Transport Canada to take “immediate action” to require inspections of the seaplanes.
The FAA is requiring visual inspections of a stabilizer component to confirm a lock ring is present and correctly installed. Operators of the 63 U.S. planes must perform the inspections within 10 hours of flight time from the time of Wednesday’s directive and submit the results to the FAA.
The directive mandates the inspection recommended by Viking Air Ltd and FAA last week.
In September, a DHC-3 entered a nose-down near-vertical descent and crashed into Mutiny Bay, Washington killing nine passengers and the pilot. NTSB investigators found the horizontal stabilizer actuator, part of the airplane’s pitch trim control system, had separated into two pieces.
“Immediate action needs to be taken to inspect the actuator of DHC-3 airplanes, of which 40% operate in the United States, to prevent a similar tragedy from happening,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said in a statement last week.
Viking owns the manufacturing rights to the DHC-3 but does not build it. Viking Air said last week it “continues to support the NTSB in their ongoing investigation” and noted it had issued the letter to operators.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; editing by Christian Schmollinger & Shri Navaratnam)