BY RACHELE FRUIT AND SUZETTE JAMES
MIAMI, Florida - On August 7, Fine Air Flight 101 crashed on the perimeter of the Miami International Airport. The four people in the plane and one person on the ground were killed. Hundreds of others narrowly escaped death or injury as parts of the burning plane skidded across four lanes of a busy highway and a car-filled parking lot. The plane's nose eventually came to a rest inside a nearby store.

Following the crash, the investigation centered on Flight 101's cargo and the possibility that the plane was overloaded or that the load had been improperly secured in the cargo hold.

Several weeks earlier the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had recommended suspensions of 29 of the company's 59 pilots for flying planes with dangerously heavy loads. But the FAA did not take any action against Fine Air.

One former Fine Air pilot showed up at the crash site to tell local media that the DC-8's crash wasn't a "fluke." He said two dozen other workers at Fine Air resigned about a year ago over safety concerns. Another former pilot, Richard Smith was quoted in the Miami Herald saying, "I looked it up and found out the door had a bad seal and that it had been reported to maintenance... What they had done was shove two newspapers in the door to jam it shut."

Mary Schiavo, former inspector general of the Department of Transportation, suggested that Fine Air had "two strikes" against it - one, because it flew older planes and two because cargo airlines generally receive less scrutiny than passenger carriers. But Schiavo acknowledged, "In terms of cargo operations, they are fairly typical."

Prior to FAA officials returning to Washington they shifted their focus to whether or not the 49 aluminum latches found in the "open" position in the flight's wreckage were ever locked. Workers who load Fine Air's planes are employed by Aeromar Airlines, a Dominican-based company that is prohibited from flying in the United States.

The August 14 Herald ran an article titled "Workers: Planes were overloaded. Aeromar accused of falsifying records on weights." The article details a systematic falsification of records by the company that loaded Fine Air's planes. Patrick Kennedy, a former Aeromar employee, stated, "Aeromar falsified weights. For instance, they would stick a load in the belly of the plane and say it weighed 25 pounds when it really weighed 250 pounds. This often happened."

A former Aeromar cargo traffic manager said she falsified cargo weights on documents filed with the FAA and U.S. Customs. "I filled out the paperwork, I was told to forge it, and I know it was terrible."

The bosses and the FAA have maintained that the final call on whether or not to fly a plane rests with the pilot. Former employees, however, explained that it was common for trucks to pull up at the last minute with thousands of pounds of cargo, which would then be tucked into unsecured compartments, without the pilot's knowledge.

Monica Seachrist, a former Fine Air cargo agent, told the Herald, "We kept separate books." A manifest with one weight went to authorities and another reflecting the true weight was kept for billing purposes. Seachrist stated that in her four years at Fine Air she "never saw anyone from the FAA inspecting anything."

Concern over cargo operations here dates back to the 1960s, when a string of crashes happened, involving small airlines under foreign registration. Referred to as "loophole" air charter firms, because their foreign registry exempts them from FAA standards and review, these firms flourished as U.S. capitalists expanded investments in Latin America and the Caribbean. Despite FAA claims that the agency is enforcing tighter scrutiny, air cargo planes are still free of many of the inspections passenger planes are subjected to. The crash of Flight 101, brought to 21 the number of cargo aircraft crashes this year resulting in 10 deaths.

Miami International Airport is the country's sixth largest airport, but handles more international cargo than any airport around the world - some $17 billion annually.

More than 1,460 takeoffs and landings take place here each day. By 2010, the FAA projects that flights in and out of this airport - located in the center of Miami -will increase by 115 percent.

Janet Post, Socialist Workers candidate for mayor of Miami and a member of International Association of Machinist Local 386 at United Airlines flight kitchen said, "From TWA Flight 800, to Korean Air Flight 801, ValuJet 592, and the Fine Air crash - none of these were caused by terrorism or workers' sabotage. They were all caused by the utter disregard for safety that the airline companies practice everyday. Executives of these companies should be indicted, prosecuted, and convicted for murder in every one of these crashes."

Despite the evidence that the company's drive for profits was at the heart of the crash's cause, Fine Air and the government continue to try to blame workers. The August 15 Miami Herald carried a "plea" by FAA for "workers in the aviation industry in South Florida.. to come forward with their information" on the deliberate forging of loading documents for any cargo flights that operate out of the Miami airport.

The FAA said it knows of no plans to prosecute any worker who has reported safety violations they witnessed. The agency also indicated it can't guarantee immunity from prosecution.

Rachele Fruit is a member of the International Association of Machinists Local 1126 at Aero Thrust in Miami.  
 
 
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