American Airlines Grounds Thousands of Flights For Plane Inspections

By Aaron Poehler

Published on April 11, 2008

The Federal Aviation Administration has recently begun a new round of plane inspections due to Congressional concern over lax inspection procedures within the agency, which led to American grounding many of its planes because of concerns over wheel well wires which may have been improperly bundled. FAA guidelines mandate that wires be bundled at one-inch intervals, while FAA inspections found American planes which had tied spaced every 1.25 inches, along with retention clips and lacing cords which were placed incorrectly.

15 out of 19 jets inspected by the FAA were found to be out of compliance with the FAA guidelines, though spokesmen say it is extremely unlikely the nonstandard wire bundling could have led to a crash. The company currently expects to be back to regular flight scheduling by Saturday evening, though more flight groundings may be on the way as the FAA is currently conducting another round of inspections which will run through June.

Customers whose flights were cancelled may request either a full refund of their ticket price or apply the amount to purchase of future American tickets.

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