Safety Issues with 150,000 Koito Airline Seats Raise Serious Questions – Seattle PI
Why would Eva Air let three brand new planes worth about $800,000,000.00 just sit and not make revenue? Well, it turns out they have no seats and the problem extends beyond Eva Air.
The seat manufacturer Koito, based in Japan, falsified safety test results and in September of 2009, the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) withdrew approval for the seats. EASA claimed that 16g, 9g and flammability test data were affected and the EASA stopped Airbus from installing any additional seats.
Flight Global and ATI reports that these falsified tests affected as many as 150,000 seats on 1,000 aircraft. How can this happen? Multiple sources have confirmed to Flight Global and ATI that Koito falsely indicated that some seats had been cleared by the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau (JCAB) by illegally forging the JCAB’s stamp of approval.
Many airlines have had to deal with the delays of aircraft delivery due to Koito’s issues and yet there are even more airlines that already have the seats installed. Earlier, Boeing sent people to Japan to help Koito solve its quality issues. However, it seems that their help wasn’t enough and Boeing told me they will no longer offer Koito seats to customers.
via Safety Issues with 150,000 Koito Airline Seats Raise Serious Questions.
