FAA asks for checks of other jets
     WASHINGTON - 6:46 p.m. ET May 26, 1998 -  The Federal Aviation
 Administration has asked airlines to make preliminary checks of
 McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed planes for fuel tank electrical
 problems, following faults found in Boeing 747s and 737s.
     These new checks would include DC-9, MD-80 and DC-10 planes made
 by McDonnell Douglas which is now part of Boeing, an FAA spokesman
 said Tuesday. It would also include Lockheed L-1011 jets, now part
 of Lockheed Martin.
     FAA spokesman Les Dorr said the inspections continued the
 agency's commitment to examine all commercial aircraft for fuel
 ignition sources following the 1996 explosion of a TWA 747 near New
 York that killed all 230 people on board.
     "If the results of these samplings of other models shows that
 the FAA needs to take further action we will do exactly that," Dorr
 said.
     FAA aircraft certification chief Tom McSweeny wrote last week to
 the Air Transport Association (ATA), which represents the major U.S.
 carriers, seeking their help in devising a program to examine these
 other models.
     The ATA said its members would be meeting shortly on the issue.
     In 1996 TWA Flight 800 crashed after fuel and air fumes in its
 center tank exploded just after leaving New York for Paris.
     The exact ignition source is still being examined in that case,
 but the probe has uncovered a number of potentially dangerous con-
 ditions in other aircraft.
     These have included problems with the fuel measurement system
 and frayed insulation on wires carrying power through the fuel tanks
 to fuel pumps.
     It was this latter problem that led the FAA over two weeks ago
 to ground some older 737 aircraft for immediate checks and ask
 operators to check hundreds more on a slightly less urgent basis.
 McSweeny had said in escalating the 737 inspections that the FAA
 would be examining other aircraft makes.
     And last week, Boeing issued service bulletins asking airlines
 to fit a flame arrester to the inlet of the scavenge pump in 747
 center tanks and check various wiring connections to the fuel
 quantity measurement system.
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