The NTSB was SO concerned about this that they waited until 2008, twelve years after the TWA-800 disaster, eight years after they made their conclusion of its cause, to release their final directive on fuel tank inerting. . . and then only required retro-fitting the existing fleet by 2018! In addition, they only identified 60 out of over 1500 or so 747s among the aircraft to even be retrofitted! What’s wrong with this picture, if it was such a dangerous condition and design as they claimed?
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First of all, the FAA issued other directives to make fuel tanks safer before they got to inerting. The reason they waited was because in the late 1990’s the only inerting systems known were those used by the military, and they were too heavy and too expensive. Then there was an innovation that made inerting much less expensive and didn’t weigh as much. It’s very good, but not quite as good as the military’s. I think Boeing now puts it on all their new aircraft. The 787 for sure.
Good gosh, it’s going to be a ridiculous four weeks leading up to the anniversary.
The other directives were things that were already being done on the Boeing aircraft such as no electrical fuel gauge sensors. The important one they were fixating on was inerting the atmosphere.
Since 2010 ALL new major aircraft must have the inerted atmosphere fuel tanks.