Word: weintrob
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...next day deputy assistant inspector general Larry Weintrob and two other officials from my office walked into the Atlanta office of the FAA. There was only one major question: What is the FAA doing about ValuJet? Weintrob pressed for details about the recent spate of accidents. The reply stunned him. Confused, the FAA inspectors asked, What spate? The inspectors admitted they didn't know how many accidents there had been. Taken aback, Weintrob and his team laid out details: In its short life, Valujet had had more than its share of accidents and mishaps. Its planes repeatedly overshot runways...
Some of the stories, Weintrob recalled, were too outrageous to believe at first. Crews on a jet complained about a broken weather radar system 31 times before it was fixed; when a Boston flight had a stuck landing gear, the plane was diverted to the Washington area, but on the way, the landing gear started working again, so the crew continued to fly without taking the plane in to be serviced; mechanics used duct tape to patch planes; a mechanic wielded a hammer and chisel to fix a sensitive engine part, and later that engine had to be shut down...
Some individual ValuJet planes had chronic problems. It would not have been difficult for inspectors [in the Atlanta FAA office] to go over ValuJet records and trace these persistent breakdowns. Instead, the Atlanta inspectors seemed unimpressed with the summary [of problems compiled by Weintrob]. The number of accidents and incidents was not "disproportionate," they said. There was no common link between them. The FAA had no special plans for ValuJet...
...Weintrob's visit apparently prompted the FAA's Atlanta office to think twice about its conclusions and conduct its own quick re-evaluation of the ValuJet safety record...
...very likely would have continued with their charade if not for a phone call to my home late in the week after the ValuJet crash. An anonymous FAA employee had tracked me down through a reporter. I needed to know, the voice said nervously, that in the days after Weintrob grilled the Atlanta inspectors about ValuJet, the Atlanta staff took a good look at the airline. Ten days later, they put their fears in writing to headquarters. Did I understand? the caller demanded. The field staff in Atlanta had recommended in February that ValuJet be grounded. They...