American Airlines canceled several hundred flights again on April 8th, to conduct additional inspections of its MD-80 fleet to ensure precise and complete compliance with the Federal Aviation Administration's airworthiness directive related to the bundling of wires in the aircraft's wheel wells. These inspections — based on FAA audits — are related to detailed, technical compliance issues and not safety-of-flight issues. It is not known at this time how many cancellations will result, but it could be as many as 500 and additional cancellations are likely on April 9th.
The FAA raised additional concerns regarding the recent inspection of American's aircraft and the manner in which American followed the engineering change order (ECO) that had been written for the airworthiness directive related to the wiring in the MD-80s wheel wells. Specifically, some areas of concern included the spacing of the ties on the wiring bundle and the direction in which the retention clips and lacing cords were facing.
