DTN News: U.S. Navy Grounds 104 F/A-18 Boeing Fighter Jets

DTN News: U.S. Navy Grounds 104 F/A-18 Boeing Fighter Jets Source: DTN News / Int'l Media (NSI News Source Info) WASHINGTON,- March 13, 2010: The U.S. Navy grounded 104 older model F/A-18 fighter jets built by Boeing Co (BA.N). after tests had revealed earlier-than-expected cracks in the airframes, the agency said on Friday. The Navy's Naval Air Systems Command cited an emerging "safety of flight issue" with legacy F/A-18 A through D Hornets, after inspections revealed cracking had occurred earlier than predicted on some of the planes.

There have been no crashes or other mishaps related to the problem, said Navy spokesman Lt. Nate Christensen. The March 10 crash of a Marine F/A-18D Hornet from Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 224 off South Carolina - in which both the pilot and weapons officer were rescued - was not related to this problem, he said. Of the 104 grounded jets, 77 are in flight status. Of those, 23 are in Navy and Marine Corps fleet squadrons; five are forward-deployed at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan; five belong to the Blue Angels flight demonstration team; and 44 are in fleet replacement squadrons. The other 27 Hornets are in a maintenance status. The grounding notice from NavAir covered a "high stress focus area" that engineers already knew about as part of the Hornets' service-life assessment program, Christensen said, so NavAir issued a set of instructions for affected aircraft. Squadrons have been ordered to perform a magnetic field inspection on jets included in the grounding. If they don't find cracks, their Hornets go back to unrestricted flight status, although crews are required to visually inspect the wings after every 100 hours of flight. If a squadron can't do the magnetic inspection on a jet included in the grounding, its crews have been ordered to inspect its wings visually. Even if they find no cracks, the Hornet pilots will not be allowed to pull more than four Gs during flight. Christensen said he did not have a breakdown for each type of Hornet - A, B, C and D - affected by the grounding. He also did not describe where the cracks were forming on each jet - for example, in their center barrels, wings, or elsewhere. There are a total of 635 A- through D-model jets in the Navy and Marine Corps fleet. The grounding affects 104 of the 635 A through D model fighter jets the Navy owns.