The Federal Aviation Administration has just recently issued an emergency airworthiness directive demanding that all airlines check a mechanism that controls tail laps on 600 Boeing 737’s. This direction was issued just this past Friday and concerns flaps on the horizontal tails of the jets.

Back on March 2^nd, a Ryanair 737 en route from the Netherlands to Madrid experienced severe vibrations in flight and had to make an unscheduled landing in Belgium. Afterward, inspections found extensive damage to the left elevator, which is a movable flap on the horizontal tail that controls the pitch of the airplane, or the up and down motion.

The agency says that some of the jets must be inspected within 12 days and the rest within 30 days. A spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, Allen Kenitzer, said about half of the affected airplanes are operating in the United States.

It bodes well for airlines to go ahead and check the tail flaps on their Boeing planes. The Federal Aviation Administration is well known for slapping big fines on airlines that do not follow their orders. Just recently American Airlines was subjected to a fine that was over $787,000. Although the airline is meeting with the regulator about the purposed fines, it’s easy to see that the Federal Aviation Administration does not waste any time in hitting airlines with fines that they deem necessary.

Of course, this is actually good news for the general public. Although airlines should have the general safety of their passengers in mind, some airlines will put off maintenance work or not do it properly to cut corners. Skipping little steps can lead to big disasters when it comes to airplane maintenance. It is the Federal Aviation Administration’s job to stay on top of it.