Home Documents Images Message Board
(Use your browser's back button to return to the page that you were previously viewing.)

Memorandum From the office of: Norman L. Horton

This listing is a summary of our past correspondence with the FAA (and others) concerning water in the PA-23 aircraft.

There are some editorial remark included.

Two more letters follow in their entirety. (ASMC's 5 Jan. 1994 letter and the FAA's Feb. 10, 1994 letter [SumpThis].) These are included to indicate the continued failure of the FAA to recognize that the real problem is water in the tanks, regardless of how it got there……and it will get there no matter how good the seals and drains are on the aircraft. Some one, some day is going to put water in those tanks no matter how careful the owner might be.

Note that the FAA did exactly what we asked them not to do in their answer to our letter of 5 January 1994…..they repeated the history of their version of the problem to us…..as if we didn't know it chapter and verse. Again, we object to being treated as children by anyone…..especially the FAA.

If questions arise about this problem, or our actions concerning any phase of it, please contact either me or Mr Jerry Wells.

	Norman L. Horton (503) 664-1015
	Jerry L. Wells (206) 735-3769

We both travel in our business, but we both have tapes on the phone. We will return any calls.

The Honorable Senator Bob Packwood 259 Russell Senate Office Building Washington, D. C. 20510

Senator Packwood:

We were on the same aircraft from Medford to San Francisco on 16 February 1994. I mentioned that there was a problem with the FAA failing to correct a design error in the PA-23 Piper aircraft, even after admitting that the aircraft did not meet the specifications under which it was certified.

The enclosed documents contain an outline of some eight years of trying to get the FAA to recognize that the problem did indeed exist, and then years of trying to get them to correct the situation.

They have continuously danced around the real problem, that is, the elimination of water in the tanks which cannot be either detected nor eliminated by the procedures outlined in the Owner's Manual…..i.e., the procedures promulgated by the manufacturer and approved by the FAA.

The FAA has issued instructions on how to partially prevent the problem of water getting into the tanks, much to their credit, but once water does get into the tanks, by whatever means, the FAA fails to recognize that this is a genuine hazard which has caused an untold number of fatalities and will cause more in the future. Non standard procedures such as rocking the wings or lowering the nose of the aircraft before flight do not meet the requirements of the original certification documents. If such procedures are necessary for safe flight, the aircraft is not certifiable in the first place. For the FAA to prescribe such after market procedures instead of simply fixing the design error is an admission of original error on their part….which they cannot and will not admit.

A relatively simple and inexpensive fix is to put drains where the now undetectable water gathers….in the after inboard corner of each tank. This simple installation with proper draining instructions will prevent future loss of life and many unnecessary lawsuits.

Manufacturers complain that liability lawsuits are the primary reason that they cannot now manufacture and sell general aviation aircraft in the United Stated. They have a partial point in their favor….but only partially. If they were to correct design errors when they become known there would be fewer accidents and fewer lawsuits. Further, if they were to build their aircraft strictly to the current regulations, or better yet, to the current state of the art, which in some cases exceed the requirements of the regulations, there would be far fewer accidents and literally no lawsuits against the manufacturers.

The FAA seems to base their corrective actions on the statistics of reported accident causes. This requires that a "statistically significant" number of fatal accidents occur for the same reason befor the FAA does anything to prevent further accidents for such cause. It is difficult to understand this "blood priority" system of accident prevention.

In the first place, the accident statistics that the FAA uses are the result of their and the NTSB accident investigations. In the last few years these investigations have not been conducted in a manner designed to discover true "cause"….at lease in general aviation. The NTSB does a creditable job in scheduled airline accident investigations, but not so in the general aviation field. The NTSB investigators are overworked and underpaid.. They lack adequate training and are forced to run from one crash to another without sufficient time or proper support to do the job as it should be done. Most of the investigators with whom I have had contact are dedicated individuals who want to do a good job. Yet, over time they become discouraged since the lack the authority to correct the flaws they discover. The FAA has that authority, but they often fail to take action on the recommendations of the NTSB.

Under these conditions the discovery of true causes in general aviation accidents are certainly not guaranteed. Hence, the accuracy of these statistics is not something you would want to bet your retirement funds on. Mr. Wells and I have found accident causes that were completely missed by both the FAA and the NTSB time and time again.

General aviation is then hit with a double whammy….one, poor accident investigations, and two, unreliable statistics……Not only are these statistics unreliable, they are a disaster since the FAA uses them to justify their lack of proper corrective action.

But why wait for something "statistically significant" if a fatal design error is discovered ?? It should be corrected before any accidents occur. Mr. Richard Weeghman of the Aviation Consumer, using government statistics, has tracked at least 54 accidents in the PA-23 series due to water contamination since 1975. How many occurred befor that is unknown. Mr. Wells and I know of others that were not reported as water accidents, yet when we investigated the accidents after the FAA and NTSB were finished we discovered signs of water that were obvious as the basic cause of the accident.

One fact is certain. Many people have died and many more will die if the government agency that is charged with the responsibility for the safety of aviation, the FAA, does not act to correct this design error and failure to meet original certification standards.

Mr. Wells and I are not being paid for this effort. The great majority of our work has been done on our own time and with our own money. Our effort to get this situation corrected is viewed by us as a debt we owe to aviation. Both of us have been in this business for many years on a world wide basis, and we thoroughly enjoyed every year of it. It is now p a y b a c k t i m e .

We know that you and the FAA are burdened with efforts on a national scale that make this problem pale in comparison. Yet, we beg your assistance in our effort to make general aviation safer and to help save lives and property in the future.

I enjoyed our conversation between Medford and San Francisco. May I offer you any assistance I might be able to deliver…..no matter in what field. I am a specialist in air crash analysis, but my talents are not necessarily limited to that area.

Thank you for your patience.

Respectfully, Norman L. Horton Jerry L. Wells

Home Documents Images Message Board
(Use your browser's back button to return to the page that you were previously viewing.)