FAA to Meet with T-34 Owners

Air Safety Week, Feb 14, 2005

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials will be meeting with T-34 owners this week in Kansas City, Mo., to discuss spar structural problems that have caused their T-34 models to shed wings under moderate g loadings. Two of the ex-military T-34 trainers crashed near Lake Conroe, Texas -- one on Nov. 19, 2003, and the other Dec. 7, 2004 -- after near identical catastrophic structural failures. Both two-man crews were killed (see ASW Dec. 8, 2003, "Death by Dilly Dally," and ASW 19 Jan. 19, 2004, "Case #2: Confusion Reigns Supreme").

The FAA grounded the Raytheon Beech Aircraft T-34s the week after the Dec. 7 accident. After years of indecision, the FAA has required the 1950 vintage military planes to be inspected and strengthened before they can be flown again. There are nearly 500 of the piston-engine planes in private and commercial use. At the time of the 2003 crash, at least 203 of the 423 U.S. registered T-34s were not yet in compliance with the proposed fix that had been mandated.

National Safety Transportation Board investigator Aaron Sauer was assigned to look into the December crash, and he has been looking at similarities across the whole T-34 Mentor fleet. Some owners use their aircraft for aerobatics and commercial dog-fighting while others would rarely load them up at all. Nevertheless, because of their mostly ex-military origins, most T-34s would have an early history of robust use. The FAA will be reporting on the 2003 accident (only) on Feb. 21. The December 2004 accident remains under investigation, Sauer said.

During the meetings on Feb. 15-16, FAA officials will examine a proposed airworthiness directive that will rework the overworked wings and restore their structural integrity. In the December 2004 crash, the left wing center section failed four inches from the front wing spar. In both accidents, the aircraft were being operated by Aviation Safety Training Inc. and being used for upset recovery training. The company's owner, Don Wylie, was killed in the 2003 crash. There have been three such wing-loss crashes in five years. Some pundits have been saying that beefing up fatigue-induced problems may just give rise to other latent failures. The implication is that some build standards, unlike the DC-3/C-47 workhorse, can have a finite life and a use-by date. On Feb. 15-16, few owners will want to hear about that.

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