Here is the true story of AirTran 913 and how you make the connection with all the responsible parties regarding the crash of VJ 592, the FAA, NTSB, DoT and unnamed politicians.

1. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A70-2000Aug21.html  Jet's Crew Discussed Landing on Highway 

An AirTran Airways flight that was forced to make an emergency landing at Greensboro, N.C., two weeks ago was in greater trouble than first indicated and the crew had discussed bringing the plane down on a highway, sources close to a federal investigation said yesterday.

The crew of the McDonnell Douglas DC-9, its cockpit filled with smoke from an electrical fire, considered the roadway landing because they had doubts they could make it to Piedmont Triad International Airport.

There also are indications that the crew might have prevented a disaster by immediately turning back to Greensboro at the first smell of smoke. In just the seven to eight minutes it took to get the plane back to the runway, the cockpit and part of the cabin filled with "intense smoke," the captain later said.

AirTran Flight 913 took off at about 3:30 p.m. Aug. 8 on a flight from Greensboro to Atlanta, and was at an altitude of about 7,000 feet 15 miles south of the airport when the co-pilot first smelled smoke. The captain immediately declared an emergency. The plane returned to Greensboro about

3:45 p.m. and all 62 people aboard evacuated using emergency exits.

One man strained his right knee in the evacuation when he jumped off the front of a wing, and four crew members were treated for smoke inhalation.

The National Transportation Safety Board dispatched a team to the site to determine what started the fire. Sources said yesterday that it began in the circuit-breaker panel in the cockpit. At the time, the incident did not receive widespread news coverage. However, later investigation showed that the incident was far from routine.

Sources said the cockpit crew said that smoke was rapidly filling the area and they were beginning to have trouble seeing. They discussed looking for a road to land on, investigators said, but managed to get back to the airport.

"It was a serious incident," one investigative source said. "It was an event they will remember." The source said that although the investigation is continuing, the pilots and flight attendants appeared to have handled the emergency properly.

Tad Hutcheson, AirTran's director of marketing, said yesterday the crew followed AirTran policy to immediately land at the nearest airport in case of any problem. "We don't want to troubleshoot anything in the air," he said. "We're extremely pleased with the way the crew handled it."

The aircraft involved, N838AT, was originally built for Turkish Airlines in 19

70 and delivered to ValuJet Airlines in late 1994. ValuJet merged with AirTran and assumed that name in 1997.

ValuJet was shut down for a period in 1996 because of safety concerns following the crash of another DC-9 into the Everglades (VJ 592). Among the concerns then was that the airline had not rebuilt the cockpits of its secondhand planes, leaving pilots to cope with different types of controls and different circuit-breaker panel arrangements from plane to plane.

Hutcheson said that all planes were fully recertified for safety "bolt by bolt, rivet by rivet" in 1996 (after VJ 592), including the cockpits and circuit-breaker panels.

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Now comes the FAA - Eastern Airlines - NTSB CONNECTION:

This can be verified by John King at jking1@mediaone.net who has the documentation to prove it.

1. FAA's Bill White was the N.E. administrator assigned my three EAL allegations in 1987. He held the documents later released to me that showed; a. > EAL's Steve Kolski performed an exonerating inspection then falsely claimed as FAA's own. b. > FAA's assigned inspector wrote to White that EAL - not the FAA did this inspection.

c.  A second critical page submitted with that allegation exactly defining the location of the allegation was omitted from the Fact and Analysis Report. (The true location of the allegation became the major reason for the FAA's rejection). That critical page with White's handwritten name and date denoting receipt didn't get White's acknowledgement until six years later while he was on the witness stand at the Lorenzo Fittness Investigation ( "we received two pieces of paper"). Obscuring or losing critical evidence is a common FAA tool to discredit allegations.

d.  In the second allegation, the FAA didn't depose the first person witness until 7 months later nor the crew until 5 months additional. Such intentional delays are not illegal but suspend belief to a creditable investigative effort.

e.  In the third allegation, White said it would be accepted except there "where no other complaints". White's files later revealed two other Hotline calls preceded mine.

g.  White and Goglia went on to assume Washington positions.

h.  White was the stated official during the VJ Sunshine hearings said to be destined to receive that critical internal report calling for re-certification of VALUJET 3 months prior to that crash. He claimed not to have seen the report.

i.  That report was found in two versions. The earlier released report deleted two paragraphs calling attention to yet a year earlier version with more condemning language to VJ's regarding EAL including false maintenance reports. FAA explained the difference that one was a "draft report" but neither bore the words "draft" or draft copy usually reserved for such copies.

j. Kolski, EAL's lawyer, who committed several classes of felonies regarding EAL including false reports, no required license, etc now heads Airtran with Joe Leonard, the former CEO at EAL.

k. > Those unprecedented EAL indictments resulted in no fines and no jail time served because the indictments languished beyond the five year statue of limitations and a motion to drop the charges was filed and accepted.

Rewarding such behaviour ??? Oh yes - you could say that.

JK

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I paid particular attention to James Hall this morning on ABC TV, saying that he had indignation regarding certain groups, who had other theories on the cause of TWA 800, when his own NTSB can NOT tell the truth of what caused VJ 592 to crash. How can he expect the public to believe the NTSB, when they made such a criminal report on VJ 592?

   See also this article (indepth analysis)

   Why not use that safer (safest actually) wire called TKT (teflon-kapton-teflon)?