Mr. HINSON. Let me ask Mr. Broderick to help me with that, because I do not know everybody in Atlanta. Mr. BRODERICK. Well, I can not name all of them, but Mr. Spillner, Mr. Chairman, is the manager of the flight standards district office. He and the three principal inspectors for operations, avionics, and maintenance made that recommendation to their division manager, who is Mr. Sacrey. I am giving you a chain of command. Mr. Sacrey concurred in that recommendation and passed it on to Mr. Accardi and Mr. White, who passed it on to me, in that sense. But in an actual discussion sense, all of them-Accardi, White, Sacrey, Spillner, the principal inspectors-were in Atlanta on the weekend at one end of the telephone, and I and my deputy were at the other end of the telephone. Mr. SHUSTER. Was there anyone who dissented from that recommendation? Mr. BRODERICK. No one of which I am aware, sir. Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Hinson? Mr. HINSON. No, sir. Mr. SHUSTER. According to press reports and, of course, we all know that press reports are not always totally accurate as late as the previous Thursday afternoon your staff in the southern region were negotiating with ValuJet on a consent order that would have limited their flights and their routes, but allowed them to continue operating. That is correct, is it not? Mr. HINSON. Do you want to answer that, Tony? Mr. BRODERICK. I do not know specifically if somebody was still talking about that. I can tell you that Wednesday afternoon the general thinking was as reported in some of the media, that that was the way things were turning out. Thursday morning I was informed that things looked like they were going in a different direction, and it was then that I was first aware of the fact that it looked like, instead of some kind of an order that would just reduce the size of the airline, that the inspectors and managers in Atlanta thought that something much more severe was called for by the data analysis that they were performing. Mr. SHUSTER. Is not it true that the manager of the southern region, Mr. Sacrey, I believe, and the head of the Atlanta Field Office, Mr. Spillner, had reached an agreement in principle with ValuJet to allow them to continue to fly 36 planes on 20 lines of operation? In fact, they had even gone so far as to draft the language that would have gone into the consent order and the ValuJet operating specifications by mid-day on the Thursday? Mr. BRODERICK. I believe that was true as of Wednesday, sir. Mr. BRODERICK. Yes. In fact, I Mr. SHUSTER. Yes it was true as of Thursday? Mr. BRODERICK. Yes, it was no longer true as of Mr. SHUSTER. It was not Mr. BRODERICK. -Thursday morning. Mr. SHUSTER. It was not true? Mr. BRODERICK. That is right. I placed a phone call to Mr. Sacrey on Thursday morning because I, for some reason that I can not quite remember, had heard that he was concerned that the downsizing, if you will, was not an adequate remedy, and we had a discussion about whether or not that was the case, and he, in fact, agreed that that was the case-that is, that the downsizing may not be a sufficient action. Mr. SHUSTER. Is it true that on June 7, Mr. Spillner sent a document to you, an interim report, document number 23, which we have, to Washington? Let me quote from that report—which, Mr. Chairman, I ask be made a part of the record. Mr. DUNCAN. It may be made a part of the record. [The referenced material follows:] C. Type of Operation: Part 121 passenger service; scheduled, charter and sub-service. D. Size: 51 aircraft (47 DC-3 and 4 MD-201 prior E. ValuJet Airlines was granted an Air Carrier Certificate on October 21, 1993 and began service with two (2) DC-9-32 aircraft purchased from the McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Company. Their total order was for eighteen (18) of these aircraft and all of them had been traded in by Delta Airlines, then refurbished by McDonnell Douglas to delivery to ValuJet Airlines. Initially, they had eight Captains who were trained as an Initial Cadre of Check Captains assigned to oversee the training of the pilots who were subsequently hired. Additionally, the Flight Attendant Supervisors were pre-selected from the first class of Flight Attendants. All of their Pilot Training is conducted under Exemption 5408B by Flight Safety International in Miami, Florida. They utilize Flight Safety Instructors, six of whom have been designated as ValuJet Simulator Check Airmen, enabling them to conduct all of the ground and simulator training. All pilots are trained to The maximum time required by the Federal Aviation Regulations and no relief from those requirements has been requested. Upon completion of their ground and simulator training in Miami, Florida, they are given the Simulator portion of their 2-9 Rating Ride. After the simulator check is completed, the aircraft portion of their training is conducted by Valuffen Check Airmen in Atlanta, Georgia. All ValuJet pilots, except for a very few, are trained to 1 DRAFT Captain proficiency and qualification and complete their training with a DC-9 type rating. Valuter Airlines placed the first 18 aircraft on their certificate very rapidly and proceeded to procure additional aircraft to augment their fleet. They purchased nine (9) additional aircraft fiv Sources in Turkey. The ine Turkish aircraft are also DC-9-30 series aircraft and have u:.ly minor differences from the basic DC-9-32 aircraft that they procured from McDonnell Douglas. All nine were refurbished in this country and reissued U.S. Airworthiness Certificates (recertified ac N numbered aircraft). These nike aircraft were hushkitted prior to being placed on the ValuJet Operations Specifications. By December 31, 1994, they had a fleet of 27 aircraft. Since that time they have continued to expand and have added additional DC-9-33, DC-920 and LC-9-80 series aircraft to their fleet, bringing the current total to fifty-one (1) aircraft. Unofficially, they are looking at approximately fifteen (15) more. biggest procurement plan, however, centers around their contract for fifty (50) DC-9- aircraft from McDonnell Douglas, with an option for 50 additional aircraft. Delivery of those aircraft will not begin for several years. Their As of May 16, 1996, ValuJet was training thirty (30) Dilcts a month, a reduction from forty (40), at Flight Safety in Miami and approximately sixty 60 Flight Attendants a month in Atlanta, Georgia. Flight Attendant Training is conducted by ValuJet Training Personnel. From their initial introduction of service from At.anta to ValuJet Airlines underwent an in-depth inspection conducted by the Southern Region ASO-290 Team in October 1994. There were no major findings and only a few miner findings on the operations side of the inspection. All of the findings were corrected within the allotted forty five days. Only we of the findings resulted in violations. One concerned the lack of maintaining sufficient records concerning several airmen who failed proficiency checks and had tɔ be retested; he DRAFT other covered a number of minor errors in the manuals. The latter viclation was closed with a Letter of Correction and the company has indicated that they intend to appeal the firs: violation. In June 1995 Valuce: experienced the loss of an aircraft due to the disintegration of the 7th stage disk on an engine during take-off from Atlanta. All of the passengers and crew safely evacuated the aircraft, but the aircraft was destroyed by fire. This accident is still under investigation by the FAA and the NTSB. In August 1995 ValuJet Airlines underwent a DCD Inspection when they bid for government contracts and was turned down. None of the findings were of any great consequence, but as a new entrant they were not deemed to have all of the safety procedures in place that the DOD required (:...: a fully developed CRM Program and a fully developed Internal Audit Programi. The OCD conducted a follow up inspection in January of 1996 that was satisfactory and resulted in non certification as an approved carrier. In September 1995 Valuer underwent a focused NASIP. findings resulted in one violation relating to manual errors, and one letrer of Warning due to not having a current copy of one captains pilot certificate. The During late 1995 and early 1996 the company experienced three insiderts in which aircraft slid off of the runway and two accidents which involved aircraft damage. Ne one was injured in any of these occurrences. As a result of concerns brought about by those occurrences and their rapid growth, the Atlanta Flight Standarde District Office initiated a Special Emphasis Program of curveillance on February 20, 1996. This Special Emphacic Program wsc designed to look into areas that are not emphasized in NASIP, RASIP and DOD inspectione in an effort to determine whether any common thread exacted in each of those events. The program was establiched to rur. for 120 days and is scheduled to be completed by June 15, 1996. On May 11, 1996 ValuJet Airlinec Fligh: 592, enroute from Miami to Atlanta was involved in a fatal accident which is currently under investigation. by the FAA and the NT63. Compliance Posture: Through May 23, 1996, there have been 68 EIR filed against Valuset: |