Jet-Fuel Safety Additive Used In Most Nations Except U.S.

WASHINGTON - Unlike much of the world, the United States does not use an anti-static agent in its commercial jet fuel that could reduce the chance of the kind of static-electricity buildup that investigators now say may have touched off the explosion of TWA Flight 800.

Use of anti-static additives is strongly recommended by the International Air Transport Association, the trade group for the major air carriers. Airports in Canada, Europe and elsewhere supply commercial jets with fuels containing them. The U.S. military also uses the additives.

But the United States - without a major static-caused refueling accident in 25 years and with little reason until now to doubt the effectiveness of anti-static protections during flight - has not mandated them in commercial fuel. Also, there are logistical difficulties in using the additives in the United States, specialists said. U.S. jet fuel is delivered to many airports via multi-use pipelines and is subjected to filtration at storage tanks. Such filtering would strip the additive, so it would have to be added at individual airports.

"The FAA is not planning to regulate additives until we see a safety reason to do so," said Frazier Jones, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

Some Flight 800 investigators suggest that a buildup of static along a cross-feeding fuel line could have ignited fumes in the plane's mostly empty center tank. A leak of fuel from the line into the tank, they say, also could have built up a charge.

Jones said the agency is reviewing issues raised by the National Transportation Safety Board last week in an urgent recommendation to the FAA regarding the safety of mostly empty fuel tanks on Boeing 747s and other jetliners. Those recommendations do not explicitly address the static issue.

The board said its investigation of the July 17 TWA crash, which killed 230 people, has found evidence consistent with an explosion in the large center fuel tank on the 747. Investigators are trying to determine how vapors in the tank ignited.

Some experts are skeptical of the static-electricity theory, which they say is a convenient fall-back in the absence of any other cause being proven. Still, if the theory is true, they say, a fix is available.

Cyrus Henry, a research fellow at Octel America in Newark, Del., which makes an additive called Stadis 450, said the additive costs about $1.50 per thousand barrels of fuel.

Such additives are used primarily to help prevent buildup of static charge during fueling. During flight, fuel lines are grounded to direct static buildup to the wingtips for discharge into the air.

Henry said the U.S. has prevented fueling accidents by grounding the aircraft and using pumps and lines that minimize static buildup.

Henry and others said it is almost certain that the fuel TWA Flight 800 took on at John F. Kennedy Airport did not have anti-static additive. The 50 gallons of fuel in the plane's center tank likely did, he said, because it was put in at Athens.