United Grounds all 777s - Will CO Do The Same?
 

As of April 2, 2008 United has grounded the 777s in its fleet for a safety check related to the fire supression system.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=808128


Does this mean that CO will need to do the same thing?

CO's 777s seem to be operating today. The couple articles I've read seem to suggest that it is UA deferring maintenance rather than an issue with the plane type. Of course, if CO also deferred the same maintenance then we're in big trouble.

Anyone else wondering what the F the FAA has been doing with all the tax money they've been taking from us? They aren't really getting their control systems upgraded, and they apparently also aren't monitoring the airlines very effectively. What else are (or aren't) they doing??

They've been investing in three areas:

1. Advanced shoe scanning machines
2. Bigger bins to fit containers larger than 3 oz.
3. More lane diveders to allow for longer lines.

That's all DHS/TSA, not FAA :p

From what i heard, just like smb12 said, ita UA maintenance issue.
They had not performed the fire suppression test on all the fire suppresion bottles in the cargo hold , and they were the ones that initiated the grounding.
I would imagine that at least the CO 777's that went in for heavy maintenance and retrofit recently had these tests done at that time.

Boy am I glad I'm not on my usual LAX-IAD-LAX flights and I more often than not pick the 777 flights for upgrade availability. It's also a madhouse today at LAX with the cancellations.

Was on a 777 flight about 2 months ago and 45 minutes into flight there was this loud grinding noise followed by a thump and then smell of smoke. FAs were running back and forth and calling the cockpit. Later Captain comes on PA and says they contacted UA maintenance who downloaded information from the plane and could find nothing wrong so we kept on going. Next day I checked the flight that would have used the 777 and it was canceled.

I'd love to see a CO press release stating that the mx work being performed by UA is not applicable to CO because they actually did the checks when they were supposed to. Then again, after Boeing poked at Airbus for so long and then got hosed with delays of their own, maybe just saying that CO has no need to ground their fleet would be sufficient. Of course, if that turns out to not be true then who knows.

Considering that what I assume to be a tightening up by the FAA has affected at least WN, AA, DL & UA, any such Press Release would probably be tempting fate. I'd frankly be mighty surprised if it doesn't eventually affect different aircraft types on every carrier.

CO send its 772s for heavy maintenance to HAECO in HKG. I don't know where UA does its 772s, but just 2 weeks ago, UA grounded some 744s briefly to recheck its altimeters after their Korean contractors told them their equipment wasn't calibrated properly.

I don't believe UA's 772s are maintained in HKG.

Since UA only flies 747s to HKG for revenue flights I would assume this is accurate. Still, this doesn't strike me as the type of thing that is a heavy maintenance check, not that I really know the difference.

UA used to have 772s flights to HKG. And even DL can send 763s (including non-ERs) to HKG for maintenance.

Anyways, having read more about UA's 772 issues, it seems like it's just that they've been omitting the regular checking of one of the fire retardant bottles on their 772s during maintenance as it was not on the check list. But there's automatically checking of all the bottles before each flight anyways, so it's really not a significant issue.

if im not mistaken, CO outsources nearly all of its major maintanence. more than any other major carrier. no big deal to me. im sure they do a pretty good job overseeing it. i deal with very few CO maint issues, and thier rare safety issues seem to be unrelated to equipment.

they were in the news today however, for having forgone proper maintanence of some 4,000+ lifevests a few years back. sorry, but that doesnt bother me that much, as long as thats the worst there is...

it seems like since the southwest thing, the airlines have been reviewing maint practices and finding issues where there could have been lapses. they'er simply re-checking. finding some issues, but for the most part, i think we're all still flying on pretty safe AC.

The FAA isn't just reviewing its practices, it is supposedly reviewing the practices of its people...didn't the WN investigation turn up some inspectors who became a lil too chummy with the MX reps, leading to pencilwhipping?

That was the main problem, even more than the fuselage cracks.

Isn't CO using the heavy maintenance cycle to upgrade the 777? Isn't that pretty much a gut and fill job? They probably go through all the wiring and fire systems since they are putting power to all the seats and adding the AVOD.

Not that I know, but it is just a thought.

FWIW
DLM