Reduction of Fuel Tank Flammability in Transport Category Airplanes

Resumen

This NPRM proposes new rules that will require operators and manufacturers of transport-category airplanes to take steps that, in combination with other required actions, should greatly reduce the chances of a catastrophic fuel-tank explosion. The proposal follows seven years of intensive research by the FAA in collaboration with industry into promising technologies designed to make fuel tanks effectively inert, thus preventing electrical and other systems from igniting flammable vapors in the fuel tank ullage (vapor space). The result of that research is that fuel tank inerting, originally thought to be prohibitively expensive, can now be accomplished in a reasonably cost-effective fashion and protect the public from future calamities which, we have concluded, are otherwise virtually certain to occur. The new rules, if adopted, would not actually direct the adoption of specific inerting technology either by manufacturers or operators but would establish a performance-based set of requirements that do not specifically direct the use of fuel-inerting but rather set acceptable levels of flammability exposure in tanks most prone to explosion or require the installation of an ignition