Switlik Life-Raft Safety Alert

[GordMay]

From “Trade Only Today” 12/6/2004

Manufacturer issues life raft safety alert !

Switlik Parachute Co. Inc., a Trenton, N.J.-based life raft manufacturer, has issued a safety alert on models using a specific inflation valve.

O-rings on the P/N S-2630 valve, used on some life raft models manufactured since 1996, may allow gas to escape from the cylinder “under very limited circumstances,” the company said. The problem “is not obvious and could cause false reliance on a life raft that, if needed, will not inflate and function as a life-saving service,” the company warned.

Switlik says the leakage occurred when the affected units were subjected to unusually high temperatures (above 95 degrees F) during the summer of 2003, then stored outdoors during abnormal cold (0 degrees F) during the past winter. The company says, however, these temperatures were “well within the operational high and low extremes to which the rafts have been tested and approved or certified.”

The problem occurred primarily in the Mid-Atlantic, New England and Great Lakes regions, all of which experienced the sequence of temperature extremes.

Switlik, which requires its rafts to be serviced once a year, says it will provide (at no charge) a new piston assembly with O-rings that function properly within the approved temperature range. It has issued a service bulletin to its service stations, which will perform the upgrade at time of servicing.

The company is telling consumers to contact their service stations to see if a particular model is affected. A list of those stations can be found at www.switlik.com.
E-mail: info@switlik.com
Tel: (609) 587-3300
Fax: (609) 586-6647