FAA begins crackdown on regionals with $1.3 million Gulfstream fine

US FAA yesterday said it proposed a $1.3 million civil penalty against Gulfstream International Airlines, alleging "improper scheduling of flight crew duty time" and installing unapproved air conditioner compressors on its fleet of 27 1900D turboprops.

In a statement, the agency said that "a review of [the Florida-based regional airline's] electronic record-keeping system for tracking crew duty and rest time revealed that Gulfstream International did not accurately input the proper data from its manually generated hard-copy aircraft logbook records into the electronic system. The discrepancies resulted in scheduling crew members in excess of daily and weekly flight time limitations." FAA also charged that Gulfstream "improperly maintained vent blowers."

The announcement comes a week after National Transportation Safety Board hearings into the crash of a Colgan Air Q400 (ATWOnline, May 15) raised questions about regional airline pilot scheduling practices and FAA safety oversight of the regional industry (ATWOnline, May 21).

FAA said it determined during a June 2008 inspection that Gulfstream "installed unapproved automotive air conditioner compressors on its aircraft between September 2006 and May 2008." Following the inspection, the airline grounded the affected aircraft and replaced the units with approved aircraft compressors, it said. During a July 2008 inspection, the agency discovered that Gulfstream installed "improperly maintained vent blowers on six aircraft." The faulty blowers subsequently were replaced with properly maintained units. The regional has 30 days to respond.