Replacement Seat Hazard

How to keep the Cessna 170 flying and airworthy.

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GAHorn
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Joined: Fri Apr 12, 2002 8:45 pm

Replacement Seat Hazard

Post by GAHorn »

Sometimes 170 owners replace their seats with those from a different model aircraft and that can mislead one into missing certain maintenance and AD warnings if the donor aircraft is unidentified and/or not known. This is common when parts are sourced from salvage yards or online auction sites, etc.

FAA has issued SAIB AIR 21-16 that warns to inspect certain seat-back-to-bottom attach bolts every 200 hours to avoid a dangerous situation where the seat-back separates and allows the back to fail. On take-off this can (and has) lead to stall-after-takeoff…and runway departures upon landing.

Even original 170 seats should also be regularly inspected IMO and the steel tubing from which original seats are constructed can rust and weaken internally and fail, allowing the occupant to fall backwards.

The Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin is posted in the MX Library: viewtopic.php?f=43&t=15867
'53 B-model N146YS SN:25713
50th Anniversary of Flight Model. Winner-Best Original 170B, 100th Anniversary of Flight Convention.
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