Airports across the United States were choked last week with herds of stranded passengers when American Airlines, the country’s largest commercial carrier, called off thousands of takeoffs. The cause of this commuting calamity was a 7 April FAA inspection of nine Boeing MD-80s that revealed that some of the planes’ wiring had not been fastened in accordance with an earlier agency directive. In response, the FAA grounded hundreds of MD-80s and ordered fleetwide inspections of the jets’ electric wiring.

Was it a necessary move? Is there a technological fix that could have prevented such a seize up of the nation’s skies? Spectrum posed this and other questions to Cynthia Furse, a professor of electromagnetics at the University of Utah. Furse was coauthor of ” Down to the Wire,” an IEEE Spectrum feature article about the hidden hazards of airplane wiring, which appeared in the February 2001 issue. Since then she has been developing technologies that would detect wiring faults in flight. IEEE Spectrum’s Willie D. Jones spoke to her on 11 April 2008.

IEEE Spectrum: What was at the bottom of all those canceled flights last week? Were all the called-off departures necessary?

Cynthia Furse: As I understand it, a major reason for the FAA wiring-change order that resulted in the need to inspect the MD-80 planes was to check the bundling and the ties to prevent potential arcing within a wheel well—an area that commonly has faults. The FAA required a change to the wire-tie configuration, but not all the changes were made correctly. The planes then had to be reinspected, resulting in the canceled flights. This was very responsible—even if it stranded a lot of travelers. At least they’re safe.

Spectrum: How would you rate American Airlines’ handling of the problem?

CF: Every commercial and military entity that flies aircraft has a large number of aging planes. And all of these planes, like older cars, are prone to having problems as they age. I am very pleased to see the response of American Airlines and the FAA in making sure that these planes are properly inspected. Inconvenient as it may be for the passengers, just be glad that you are sitting safely in the airport while someone looks out for your safety.

Spectrum: Are we likely to see this again?

CF: There is a possibility of that. I would hope that they would ground airplanes that could be potentially dangerous. But I would also anticipate that in the relatively near future, there will be more-advanced technologies available on the planes that will prevent electrical-wire faults and potential damage and make the maintenance easier, thus preventing mass flight cancellations.

Spectrum: Was there anything that could have been done in the design stage or during regular maintenance to prevent deterioration of the material shielding the wires?

CF: There are certainly things that can be done in the design, and new planes are designed with a lot of improvements over the old ones. But the fact of the matter is that you’re always going to have planes that are older. Even if you [retired your aging planes every year], there is still the potential for wiring problems. So what’s really important is to have a good inspection and maintenance program and then to have the most advanced wire-testing tools available.

The Navy, the Air Force, NASA, and the FAA are all working intensely on developing new test technologies. New stuff is coming online regularly, and over the next 10 years I suspect that we will see some substantially changed methods for locating faults on wires.