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A former pilot for Arrow Air, the charter airline...

By ELIOT BRENNER

WASHINGTON -- A former pilot for Arrow Air, the charter airline involved in the DC-8 crash in December that killed 248 U.S. servicemen in Newfoundland, told Congress today the airline had a record of marginal maintenance and pushed its pilots to fly too much.

But officials of Arrow Air said the airline has operated safely.

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The testimony came at a session of the Senate's investigations subcommittee, opening a day of Capitol Hill hearings into the Dec. 12 crash.

The carrier's DC-8 was bringing members of the Army's famed 101st Airborne Division home to Fort Campbell, Ky., for the holidays from peacekeeping chores in the Sinai Desert when it crashed just after takeoff at Gander, Newfoundland, Dec. 12. All 248 service personnel and the eight-member crew were killed.

A House committee planned a separate afternoon hearing on the crash.

Daniel Hood, who flew for Arrow between April 1983 and February 1985, said the charter's attitude toward maintenance was 'one of performing only marginal maintenance on its airplanes' and said pilots would often 'be confronted with several inoperable items on the aircraft.' Hood's fiancee died in the Gander DC-8 crash.

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'I left Arrow for many reasons, but the primary ones were ... marginal maintenance, disregard for legal flight time limitations, and unrealistic crew duty time demands.' He said he was often told he would have to fly extra time or military charter contracts would be lost and the company would go out of business.

But George Batchelor, Arrow's chairman, said in testimony prepared for the hearing, 'I wish to publicly state at this time that Arrow Air was and is a safe airline.'

As for Hood's complaints about marginal maintenance, Batchelor said, 'We have never placed any limits on budgetary resources needed for maintenance.'

Batchelor said he only recently heard allegations of pressure on pilots to fly aircraft they thought were unsafe and said, 'I have great difficulty believing this could have happened.'

Richard Skully, the firm's maintenance vice president, said that although federal inspectors found problems, the firm moved to fix them.

'My response to allegations that Arrow Air can be characterized as an unsafe airline merely because of the frequency of FAA inspections is that ... Arrow Air does comply with air safety regulations and that there has been no reason to even consider denying Arrow Air the authority to fly.'

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Hood cited one Arrow 707 with air conditioner problems and said that because of maintenance problems and the plane's registration number, 707PD, pilots nicknamed the plane 'pre-death.'

Hood also testified that four days prior to the ill-fated flight, his fiancee, flight attendant Ruthie Phillips, told him by telephone that the aircraft had an unspecified problem in one of its four engines.

'I asked her, 'Why don't you just quit and get off the airplane?'' Hood said, adding that his she told him, ''I will quit as soon as I get back.''

Another former Arrow pilot also testified that crew schedules were such that cabin attendants would sometimes walk into the cockpit and find both pilots and the flight engineer dozing off from exhaustion.

Sen. Albert Gore, D-Tenn., a member of the Senate panel, said in prepared remarks that the cause will not be known until the Canadian government completes its investigation, 'but ample evidence does suggest that Arrow Air's safety record has been marginal at best.'

'The airline has a long history of infractions against required guidelines for safe air travel,' said Gore. 'I believe testimony will show us a fly-by-night airline that cut every corner on safety and pulled out every stop to keep its planes moving and revenues coming in.'

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The Senate panel plans hearings next week to talk with Federal Aviation Adminstration officials about Arrow's low ratings on safety checks.

'If cost-cutting is cutting into safety margins, and if government agencies are not doing an adequate job of policing within the industry, then we need to correct that situation immediately,' Sen. William Roth, R-Del., chairman of the investigation panel, said.

Arrow Air recently filed for bankruptcy. Not long after the crash, the Pentagon quietly announced it was giving the firm more business, but when a House subcommittee passed a resolution recommending that Arrow not get more business until the subcommittee investigation was finished, the Air Force announced it was curtailing its contracts with the Florida-based carrier.

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