Update: Flames on a Plane

Two years ago we reported on cars using Kapton, a wiring material with a tendency to cause electrical fires. Turns out, Kapton is used by almost every airline, too.

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


in 2006, Mother Jones reported that the wires in millions of Ford vehicles were insulated with Kapton, which has a tendency to crack and cause electrical fires. Turns out Kapton is also widely found in commercial aircraft. “It is in nearly every airline,” says Edward Block, a former Pentagon wiring expert who wants the material banned. Kapton has caused problems on the space shuttles and has been removed from some military aircraft and Air Force One, but Block estimates two-thirds of the country’s 19,000 airliners still use it.

The Federal Aviation Administration keeps no records of how many planes use Kapton, and its new wiring guidelines don’t mention it. Yet Bill Linzey, who works with the faa to model the effects of wiring damage, says Kapton “is a concern that should be monitored.” A more practical alternative to rewiring thousands of planes, he says, is a preemptive fix, such as American Airlines’ March grounding of hundreds of its MD-80 planes to ensure that its own wiring rules—designed to reduce the risk of Kapton fires—were being properly followed.

“A lot of effort has gone into maintaining and inspecting wires,” Linzey says about the airlines. “What they’ve done seems to have been working. Unfortunately, the only way you find out if it hasn’t is if something really bad happens.”

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate