Unsealed Fate

A 30-c- nightmare

Eastern Air Lines Flight 855 from Miami International Airport is normally a 30-minute pleasure hop to the resort of Nassau, some 180 miles away. But the trip became a brief waking nightmare for 162 passengers and ten crew members aboard Flight 855 last week. For 50 heart-stopping minutes, they faced possible disaster as their trijet L-1011 aircraft lost power in all three engines and fell almost four miles, to within 4,000 ft. of the Atlantic waves. As trembling passengers fumbled into their life jackets, Pilot Richard Boddy made an ominous announcement:

"Ditching is imminent." Alerted Coast Guard cutters sped toward the scene. Then, responding to the pilot's frantic efforts, the rear engine sputtered alive again. The pilot was able to return the crippled aircraft safely to an emergency landing in Miami. Said Passenger Janet Jacobs, of Hollywood, Fla.: "We are the luckiest people alive."

The near tragedy had a merciful ending, but in its wake came a sobering discovery: only a few pennies' worth of human carelessness had almost downed one of the world's sophisticated commercial aircraft. The cause of the Miami mishap was the absence of three thumb-size rubber seals, known as O rings, which are normally fitted to magnetized plugs on oil lines in each of the L-1011's Rolls-Royce engines. According to Eastern's maintenance procedure, the oil plugs with their O rings are removed overnight after each jetliner flight so that the condition of the engine lubricant can be checked. The plugs that were returned to Flight 855 lacked the O ring seals, each of which costs about 10-c-, causing an oil leak under high-pressure operation, which eventually led to the near fatal engine seizures. Alarmingly, the jet had passed a preflight inspection test that uses air pressure to force the engines up to starting speed precisely to ensure that the oil pressure is normal. Making the en ire incident even more painful from Eastern management's point of view was the fact that the company had recently granted a 32% pay in crease to members of the machinists' union, who are responsible for engine maintenance.

Since the mishap, Eastern has checked the seals of the other 27 L-1011s in its fleet to make sure that the O rings are in place. But for 48 of the passengers from Flight 855, that precaution was not enough. While their fellow travelers determinedly boarded another Eastern jet that was bound for Nassau, the 48 decided to remain shakily but safely on the ground in Miami. . This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.