FAA said airplane parts didn’t require replacement

Concerns about faulty airplane parts linked to a 2004 crash that killed a Coeur d’Alene man didn’t rise to the level of mandatory replacement, a Federal Aviation Administration official said this week.

But parents of Eric Dvoracek, the 28-year-old pilot who died in the Arizona crash, vowed to press the agency to issue a directive that would force owners to fix the problem on as many as 16,000 small planes.

“Why wouldn’t the FAA err on the side of life?” said Carla Dvoracek, of Post Falls, the pilot’s mother.

Eric Dvoracek was conducting a solo weather check for a Grand Canyon tourism firm on Dec. 8, 2004, when the single-engine Cessna he was flying crashed into a mountain ridge near Meadview, Ariz.

Last week, a report issued by National Transportation Safety Board determined that Dvoracek likely lost control when the plane’s elevator separated from its trim tab control. The reason for the separation couldn’t be determined, the report concluded.

But the NTSB investigation also revealed a 20-year history of 47 complaints and multiple warnings about the foam-filled elevator trim tabs, including an FAA special airworthiness information bulletin issued the month after Dvoracek’s death.

The bulletin suggested – but did not require – replacement of the parts, which Cessna stopped manufacturing in 1985. Located on the tail of a plane, the parts control lateral movement, pitch and lift.

The FAA declined to issue a more serious airworthiness directive – which would have mandated replacement – because officials weren’t sure the parts were responsible for Dvoracek’s death, a spokeswoman said this week.

“Our office is unconvinced that in-flight vibration or flutter of the tab was the cause of the subject accident,” FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Cory wrote in an e-mail.

In addition, FAA officials believed the potentially faulty parts should be repaired during basic maintenance, not through “special or unique maintenance practices” required for an airworthiness directive, Cory said.

“Corrective action in those situations should be taken through normal Flight Standards maintenance communications channels,” Cory wrote.

But Carla Dvoracek and her former husband, Jim Dvoracek, of Coeur d’Alene, said they were determined to challenge the FAA’s position.

“My interpretation is that it is final; they’re not going to change it unless they get pressure,” Jim Dvoracek, Eric’s father, said Wednesday.

The pair said they’re concerned that the faulty parts endanger not only other pilots but also the passengers they serve. Eric Dvoracek worked for King Airelines, a Nevada-based company that conducts aerial tours of the Grand Canyon. At the time of the accident, the company operated a fleet of 14 single- and multi-engine planes, the report said.

“Eric could have had five people in that plane with him,” Jim Dvoracek said.

The Dvoraceks’ lawyer, Stuart R. Fraenkel of the Los Angeles firm Kreindler & Kreindler, said the accident raises questions about federal regulations that govern operations of small planes used for tourism. He said that the FAA struggles to balance safety concerns with potential financial impact on aircraft owners and operators and the industry as a whole.

“The FAA looks for the cheap way out,” said Fraenkel, who previously said the Dvoraceks likely would file civil lawsuits in connection with the accident. “Someone who’s paying good money to fly around the Grand Canyon is expecting that aircraft to be airworthy.”

Neither Cory nor another FAA spokesperson responded to a request for comment.

A Cessna Aircraft Co. spokesman declined to release information about costs to replace faulty foam-filled elevator trim tabs. But Bill Gay, an inspector for Aero Care and Repair in Hayden Lake, said he was familiar with those parts and procedures. He estimated it would cost $2,200 to fix the elevator trim tab on a Cessna T207A, the type of plane Dvoracek flew.

To parents of the University of Idaho graduate, that’s a small price to pay for public safety.

“If my child has been taken, there’s nothing going to stop me from pursuing this,” Carla Dvoracek said.

Reach reporter JoNel Aleccia at (208) 765-7124 or by e-mail at jonela@spokesman.com