Inspectors for F.A.A. Say Violations Were Ignored

End the War Now airplane banner circling Union Park demonstration this summer

A ru-oh moment for Southwest.

Three veteran Federal Aviation Administration inspectors told lawmakers on Thursday that their agency supervisors looked the other way while Southwest Airlines neglected to inspect planes as required, and continued to fly them even after discovering cracks in some of them.

The inspectors said that their F.A.A. supervisors knew of the problems but had discouraged them from pursuing the safety problems or addressing problems within the agency, even threatening to relieve them of their duties.

One was removed from his job as an office manager and another was encouraged to apply for a transfer, they said. A third said he was temporarily removed from his role overseeing Southwest, as a result of complaints by the airline.

The F.A.A. has since proposed a fine of $10.2 million against Southwest, because it flew tens of thousands of flights without performing inspections of the fuselage skin. The inspections were meant to prevent a repeat of a 1989 accident, when a huge chunk of skin peeled off an Aloha Airlines plane in flight.

Southwest later notified the agency that it had stopped flying the planes, while in fact it continued to fly them.

[From Inspectors for F.A.A. Say Violations Were Ignored - New York Times]

Gee, I wonder if letting Republicans run regulatory agencies is such a wise choice? I bet the F.A.A. supervisors were pro-lifers, and some may have even attended Pat Robertson's Regent university. Well, maybe not, but you get the idea.

Back to reality, Southwest has a massive PR debacle on their hands, lets see how they handle it. They've been smugly arrogant all these years about how much better run they were compared to other airlines, maybe it was was just clever marketing.