The Long and the Short of it:
I have spent the whole day tapping into all of my resources to uncover the following. Phone calls to people in Florida to Michigan to California. Here is what I have learned:
In last night's mini, 2 of the 5 slides failed to deploy. These slides were originally packed by the "old vendor", and since these slides deployed properly on the opposite side of the plane in prior mini's, no one expected them to be a problem.
The FAA is in the process of retracting that company's authority to pack slides - ALL SLIDES - not just door #5 slides - and any airline that has had its slides packed by that vendor will now have to have them re-packed by a differnet approved vendor.
There are 10 slides on N706BL. 50% were deployed (or attempted deployment) last night, leaving 5 "untested". Of the 5 untested, 3 were packed by the old vendor.
The FAA is requiring (obviously, as it is extending this requirement to the rest of the industry) Baltia to take those additional 3 slides off N706BL and get them re-packed by the new facility.....that is, 8 slides need to be repacked. Fortunately, since Baltia had some slides in reserve ready to slap on N706BL so that they could begin proving flights immediately, only 4 slides need to be expedited to Florida and returned by early next week for the re-take.
BTW....those slides shipped out today, and their re-packing will be supervised by a Baltia maintenance employee as well as one of the FAA's finest at Baltia's new vendor in Florida.
The anticipation is that they will be back in time and re-mounted before next week's re-take.
As a further BTW, the FAA was so pleased with the crew's outstanding performance that they expedited the next re-take as much as they were legally allowed to do.
So hold on to your seats another week or so(or...looking at my watch, slightly less), and we should once again witness a re-take of the mini.....and this time with a full compliment of newly packed slides from the new vendor.
This time around it will be the crew's professionalism that will be tested.....not the old packing facilities inferior workmanship.....and as Baltia's crew has performed with flying colors on the last few mini's, we should expect no less from them on next week's re-take.
God knows.....they sure have had a lot of practice!
LOL!
Go Baltia! Let's get this done!
"Always only post what you truly believe to be the God's Honest Truth, or don't post at all."
