New, safer planes by Livia Cseresova

On Wednesday, 12 years after an explosion destroyed TWA Flight 800 airplane, killing 230 people, federal officials said that a device to prevent plane from exploding has to be installed on some passenger jets and cargo planes. Mark Rosenker, the Chairman of National Transportation Safety Board believes “this will save lives”.

As Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said, the new safety requirement applies to new passenger and cargo airplanes that have center fuel tanks- just like the mentioned exploded TWA 800.

It is needed to adapt to changes the 2,730 existing Airbus and Boeing passenger planes, built with center wing fuel tanks since 1991. Manufacturers have two years for it, but Boeing is making some new planes with changes already.

The changes will finally end a long story in federal aviation society. The cause of explosion of Boeing 12 years ago was, as identified by the National Transportation Safety Board shortly after the accident, the ignition of oxygen in a partly empty fuel tank that had been sitting in the sun for hours before takeoff. However, the FBI believed that the plane exploded because of a bomb.

In 2005, the Federal Aviation Administration proposed a rule to prevent future explosions, but the aviation industry said the price was too high.

The definite rule requires aircraft manufacturers and passenger airlines to install devices that replace oxygen with inert nitrogen in fuel tanks as they empty.

The spokeswoman for Air transport Association of America, Victoria Day, said that the airlines “will, of course, comply with the rule."

Matt Ziemkiewicz lost his sister who was a flight attendant aboard TWA Flight 800. Ziemkiewicz said he was "disappointed this didn't happen sooner. We knew this was a preventable accident before Flight 800." But he is satisfied with the new rule, which is "reasonable and realistic."

The price of new technology will probably range from $92,000 to $311,000 per aircraft. The exact cost depends on a size of aircraft, Mary Peter said. According to Robert Strugell, FAA Acting Administrator, the cost to industry overall will be about $1 billion.

Initial estimates about 10 years ago put the potential cost of protecting fuel tanks from explosion as high as $36 billion.

by Livia Cseresova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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edited by Beata Biskova