Ryanair is to carry out inspections of Boeing 737s following a new aviation directive extending the inspections of older 737 aircraft to newer models. The US Federal Aviation Administration has extended an order for the immediate inspection of 737s with more than 50,000 flight hours.
The order - which affects about 15 per cent of the US domestic fleet - follows a Boeing discovery that Teflon sleeves shielding fuel-tank wires and the wires themselves showed "a high degree of wear" in three jets.
The FAA also said that in one of those jets, two metal conduits that encase the wiring had pinholes that might have been caused by electrical arcing.
US authorities believe that a short-circuit in the fuel tank wiring might have triggered the blast aboard TWA Flight 800 off the coast of Long Island in July 1996. All 230 people on the Paris-bound flight were killed.
A spokeswoman for Ryanair said that the airline had received "a revised time-table for the implementation of an airworthiness directive regarding modifications to 737 aircraft".
Ryanair was satisfied that it could comply with the directive, which included the inspection and modification of the wiring in the fuel tank of the 737 aircraft.
"In fact many of the Ryanair aircraft have already been modified ahead of the required schedule," said the spokeswoman.
Aer Lingus was unavailable yesterday for comment on the new directive.
the extended order covers an additional 118 US-registered airplanes and 282 world-wide.
The FAA has said the inspection should be completed in 17 days.