Emery DC-8 probe sparks wider maintenance fears 

Air Transport Intelligence 

May 15, 2002

Washington DC 

A senior National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) 
member has decided to recess the agency's public hearing 
into the February 2000 crash of an Emery Worldwide 
Airlines DC-8-71 while it searches for new witnesses. 

John Goglia, who chaired last week's hearing, alleges 
that testimony by Emery executives at last week's 
hearing was inadequate. As a result, he is concerned 
that maintenance quality oversight could be a wider 
problem throughout the US cargo airline industry and the 
NTSB may have to focus on safety at all US cargo 
carriers.

"It is clear from these witnesses that we may need to 
spend more time focusing on this side of the business," 
says Goglia. "This may force us to focus on the broad 
base (of US cargo carriers) as well. I don't think we 
have a choice. Frankly, we don't know how many carriers 
are operating the same way." 

The NTSB had originally proposed 23 August 2001 as the 
starting date for the hearing into the crash, but 
postponed it until last week as a result of the 
grounding of Emery by the FAA last summer. In the 
interim, the carrier's parent decided to ground the 
carrier permanently. 

The rescheduled hearing began on 9 May. However, after 
it had run until late on 10 May because of what Goglia 
saw as the avoiding tactics adopted by the two Emery 
senior managers, he recessed the hearing. 

Goglia says he wants to find witnesses among former 
employees from lower, "more hands-on" supervisory levels 
in Emery's maintenance and engineering departments who 
would answer the NTSB's questions. 

"As chairman of this proceeding, one task for me is to 
help create a complete record for the full board to use 
in determining accurately the probable cause and to make 
meaningful recommendations so that we can have a 
reasonable expectation that we will not have another 
accident for the same reasons," he says. 

Goglia says the testimony by Emery executives failed to 
help him advance the documentary record on the Emery 
Worldwide DC-8 crash. Once the NTSB has found former 
Emery supervisors willing to depose on oath, a search 
that will begin in the next few days, the agency will 
review its potential new sources of evidence to develop 
a strategy for obtaining testimony in a reconvened 
hearing. 

Stressing that the NTSB's investigation into the 17 
February 2000 Emery crash is not over, Goglia believes 
the investigation could represent "a watershed issue" 
for aviation safety in terms of what the NTSB is 
learning about maintenance processes and practices at 
what was one of the larger US cargo airlines. 

It looks like Emery had a very far-reaching breakdown in 
quality assurance and maintenance reliability control," 
Goglia says, adding that he believes the Emery 
investigation could be much more far-reaching in its 
implications for maintenance oversight than the Alaska 
Airlines 261 crash investigation. 

Alaska Airlines 261 crash investigation. In the Alaska 
case, he says, it appears one specific maintenance 
practice may have been implicated. In Emery's case, 
however, from the evidence produced by the investigation 
so far - and the lack of response Goglia says he 
obtained from Emery's top engineering and maintenance 
oversight executives last week - it appears problems 
with its maintenance processes and oversight may have 
been endemic.