Veteran FAA inspectors told lawmakers on April 3 that their 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 “whistleblowers” said their bosses threatened 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 air carrier.
The FAA intends to slap Southwest with a $10.2 million fine because it flew tens of thousands of flights without performing inspections of the fuselage skin.
The hearing was held by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, whose chairman, James L. Oberstar (D-MN) said: “this investigation is not just about improper activities by one airline and one FAA supervisor in the office directly overseeing that airline. It raises serious questions about whether higher officials in the FAA are carrying out their safety responsibilities for the entire industry.”
In calling Southwest’s performance “the most serious lapse in safety I have been aware of at the FAA in the past 23 years” Oberstar said “I fear that complacency may have set in at the highest levels of FAA management, reflecting a pendulum swing away from vigorous enforcement of compliance, toward a carrier-favorable, cozy relationship…The FAA needs to clean house, from the top down, and take corrective action.”
The FAA acknowledged some of the problems cited by the inspectors.
Nicholas A. Sabatini, the associate administrator for safety, said the Southwest case was an aberration. “The safety record simply does not support allegations that the system and the FAA are broken,” he stated.
A day before the congressional hearing, the FAA called a press conference to say that a safety audit of U.S. airlines conducted in the wake of the Southwest snafu found that 99 percent are in compliance with airworthiness directives.
But four carriers remain under investigation for possible violations. FAA officials said a spot check of airline maintenance records found three of the four carriers had missed inspection deadlines. Wiring in the wheel well was one area where carriers failed to comply with airworthiness directives. One carrier had failed to submit a required plan and the other three airlines were found to have aircraft overdue for inspections. While the agency would not name the carriers under investigation, it said penalties could be levied. It will be several months before the probes are complete.
Senior FAA officials used the media event to announce new measures to make it easier for inspectors to raise concerns and to strengthen ethics policies aimed at easing potential conflicts of interests.
Acting FAA Administrator Robert Sturgell announced internal plans to (1) enable inspectors to raise their concerns quickly and at a higher level, (2) toughen ethical standards for inspectors to prevent conflicts of interest, (3) enhance airline safety by improving the clarity and coordination of directives issued by the FAA to air carriers, (4) require reporting of voluntary disclosures to be made by senior airline officials, and (5) speed up the expansion of the FAA’s comprehensive aviation safety database.
In prepared testimony, Sabatini offered his apology for “the completely unacceptable situation that occurred last year involving Southwest Airlines and the FAA’s oversight of their operations. This is my workforce. I am ultimately responsible for their actions. I am here today to apologize to this Committee and, more importantly, to the traveling public for FAA’s failures in this situation.”
He called one of the whistle-blowers who exposed critical safety violations at Southwest a “hero” and vowed to change FAA policies to ensure those violations are not repeated.
He said Southwest’s decision to knowingly continue to fly noncompliant aircraft in commercial operations was “inexcusable and put its passengers at risk.” Sabatini said the local FAA supervisor who violated FAA standards and policies and who essentially permitted the unsafe flights to continue has been reassigned, is no longer supervising inspectors, and is the subject of a pending personnel action.
“I cannot overstate my disappointment and, frankly, outrage and shock at the actions of Southwest Airlines and the FAA PMI. I will not attempt to condone either. Every FAA safety official must be dedicated to ensuring that we have the safest aviation system in the world. Every FAA safety official must be dedicated to finding new ways to improve a system that has an already enviable safety record. To learn that this was not the case with respect to certain individuals at the Certificate Management Office (CMO) overseeing Southwest Airlines is beyond troubling,” Sabatini testified.
“I applaud the persistence, dedication, and tenacity of FAA inspector Bobby Boutris in pursuing the identified deficiencies at Southwest Airlines, in spite of the unacceptable and inappropriate obstacles he faced due to the working environment at our CMO and the actions of his supervisor, the PMI. Frankly, it is the reaction I would hope all of my inspectors would have to a similar situation,” added the FAA’s stop safety official.
“We have taken this situation extremely seriously and have done a great deal of soul searching and analysis to determine how the problems developed, how FAA could have prevented them and, most crucial at this point, how we proceed from here.
“The investigation of the events surrounding this incident is ongoing, but it is clear FAA’s failure to prevent Southwest from operating 1,451 noncompliant operations was the result of a complete breakdown in adherence to FAA’s procedures and policies,” Sabatini has concluded.
But Tom Brantley, national president of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, AFL-CIO (PASS), said the incident is not isolated. “The FAA has not only promoted an internal culture where safety is given second billing, but it has manipulated every aspect of the enforcement process in order to encourage and maintain a positive relationship between the agency and the airlines. While the announcement by FAA management to create a system to make it harder to dismiss issues raised by inspectors is appropriate, it reveals an FAA culture gone awry. Even the FAA recognizes that it is not listening to its inspectors when it has to create new safeguards to do so.”
He continued: “The FAA has become so focused on working well with the airlines that it has allowed its safety mission to suffer at times. FAA safety inspectors are on the front lines of enforcing aviation safety standards. Yet, on far too many occasions, the FAA has labeled its own safety inspectors as troublemakers for simply reporting violations or allowed airline management to demand the reassignment of an inspector trying to hold a carrier accountable.”
Southwest Chairman Herb Kelleher and CEO Gary Kelly issued a joint statement for the congressional hearing in which they stood by their commitment to safety and said they have addressed two key issues.
“The first was that better judgment should have been exercised than to allow those aircraft to fly after the potential non-compliance was discovered,” they said. “The second was that senior management should have been consulted on such a significant issue, but was not.”
Southwest says senior management will be involved in all critical safety decisions in the future and will not operate aircraft if there is any credible evidence of AD non- compliance. The air carrier has placed the regulatory compliance employees involved in the matter on leave.
Southwest initiated a number of additional efforts to strengthen maintenance and engineering, regulatory compliance, and AD compliance functions, including the following:
- Review of these functions by outside independent experts
- Audit of all open FAA Airworthiness Directives
- Reorganize AD and regulatory compliance functions
- Restructure our continuing analysis and surveillance system
- Increase the number, scope and frequency of audit
- Add more stringent documentation of AD/Maintenance Plan changes
Separately, Southwest has decided not to move forward with plans to conduct certain maintenance operations in El Salvador, which were to begin in June of 2008. “The decision to alter our plans was made entirely on the basis that given the intense scrutiny being given to our entire maintenance operation, top to bottom, now was not the time to add complexity with significant changes to our maintenance operations. Rather, now is the time to focus strictly on the regulatory compliance of our existing maintenance operations,” Southwest stated.
“While the last month has been a very difficult time for all of us at Southwest Airlines, we want to assure you and the flying public that we take this matter very seriously and will apply Southwest’s strong commitment to safety to make all changes necessary to improve our Airworthiness Directive and regulatory compliance systems and ensure that our outstanding safety record continues into the future,” the senior company executives testified.