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INTRODUCTION

20 May 2004

What follows is part of the actions, thoughts and correspondence concerning the frustrations encountered by two qualified aircraft crash investigators whose sole purpose was to correct a design deficiency in an FAA certified aircraft. This diary is not complete in that many telephone conversations were not made a matter of record and some correspondence was lost or misplaced over the years. However, what is presented here fairly represents the difficulty of getting the FAA to admit a mistake in the certifying process in the face of overwhelming evidence in that regard. Further, even when the FAA admits their error there is little or no interest in correcting it. Our M & D submitted concerning the error in certifying the PA-23 aircraft was that water in great quantities would gather in the after inboard corner of the installed tanks of the aircraft and could not be discovered or eliminated by the factory recommended preflight. Thus, either on climbout or on level off after climbout this water would overcome the gascolator and feed water to the engine causing an engine loss. The FAA received the M & D in 1985 and immediately grounded that particular aircraft and advised the owner that it was his responsibility to remedy the situation to the satisfaction of the FAA before he could again fly his aircraft. That ridiculous response prompted some 15 years of attempting to convince the FAA that the PA-23 was only one of many aircraft certified by them that was deficient in ways that would allow water to reach the engine after take off and cause a problem in flight.

Suffice it to say, as of this writing in 2004, no satisfactory remedy for the problem in the PA-23 (and other aircraft) has been implemented by the FAA. Yet, this aircraft and others are still in the active fleet of general aviation and are flying with the blessing of the FAA. It seems that the FAA cannot conclude that a drain where water in tanks accumulates is a reasonable remedy to eliminating that water in a preflight. (That might work in the PA-23 but may not be applicable to all general aviation aircraft). Better yet, since all water cannot be eliminated from fuel systems, why not design fuel tanks that have a real sump that gathers the water and does not allow it to be fed to the engine in flight. There are undoubtedly many systems that could be designed to solve this problem. The FAA cannot seem to find one. Current fuel filters or gascolators may be able to handle small quantities of water, but they are woefully inadequate in many cases.

Norman L. Horton Jerry L. Wells

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