FAA Proposes $44,000 Fine
FAA investigators claim to have compiled an inch-thick file on a
1999 complaint about a burned-out bulb in a "no smoking, fasten
seat belt" sign onboard a Comair jet. The accumulating paper
shuffle ended only after the airline paid a $3,000 fine to settle
the complaint, the Gannett News Service reported on Monday.
The hearing in Federal Aviation Administration v. Comair was to
start Thursday; four years after the case began. The agency's beef
against Comair: A burnt-out light bulb, worth 77 cents, in a no
smoking-fasten seat belt sign. The FAA's proposed fine:
$44,000.
According to documents obtained in a Freedom of Information Act
request by Gannett, the problem started Sept. 17, 1999, on a flight
from Long Island to Cincinnati. An of