With the help of aircraft makers, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) often requires aircraft owners to make changes to their planes.
This typically happens after a design flaw or faulty part has been discovered. To communicate the required changes the FAA publishes an Airworthiness Directive or an “AD” for short.
You can find the recent ADs listed on the FAA’s web site. If you’re a pilot, they make for interesting reading sometimes. I’m considering writing a scraper that’ll make RSS feeds for ’em.
Anyway, this Boeing 737 AD caught my eye.
The FAA is adopting a new airworthiness directive (AD) for Boeing Model 737-300, -400, and -500 series airplanes modified in accordance with STC ST00127BO. This AD requires installation of bonding straps to the safe side harnesses of the digital transient suppression device of the fuel quantity indicating system. This AD is prompted by the results of fuel system reviews conducted by the STC holder. We are issuing this AD to prevent unsafe levels of current or energy from entering the fuel tank, due to hot short faults or threat conditions associated with the safe side harness assembly, which could result in a fire or explosion of the fuel tank.
More details in this PDF document.
It’s good to know that 737 fuel tanks will be that much less likely to catch fire, isn’t it? 🙂
Jeremy Zawodny is the author of the popular Jeremy Zawodny’s blog. Jeremy is part of the Yahoo search team and frequently posts in the Yahoo! Search blog as well.
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