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Handling of damaged 767 probed

Associated Press

DALLAS -- Federal regulators said Thursday they are investigating how an American Airlines Boeing 767 lost a panel from its belly shortly after taking off from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport before continuing on across the Atlantic and landing safely in Paris.

Part of the Federal Aviation Administration's probe involves whether the pilot should have turned back, said FAA spokesman Roland Herwig.

Airline officials say the pilot thought the loud noises during the flight last month were due to cargo shifting, according to an internal memo.

A flight attendant on the April 20 trip said there was "a loud shaking noise from the belly of the plane." A few minutes later, there was another noise that "sounded like an explosion," the attendant said, according to Dallas television station WFAA.

When the airliner landed in Paris, ground crews discovered a panel allowing access to an air conditioner was missing. The panel was part of the jet's outer skin and measured several square feet.

An American spokesman said the air conditioner area is separate from the cargo area and the pressurized cabin.

Scott Shankland, a spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association, the union for American's pilots, said the air conditioner access panel is not pressurized, so its loss didn't trigger a sensor in the cockpit. He said the captain was right to keep going instead of returning to the airport with a fully fueled aircraft.

"A plane with 100,000 pounds of fuel making a landing is an emergency in and of itself," Shankland said.

He said the aircraft would have to keep flying for nearly an hour while the crew dumped fuel, which pilots are discouraged from doing because of the high cost of fuel and environmental concerns.