Oberstar Puts FAA and Southwest Airlines on the Hot Seat

SW Airlines remains defiantly opposed to the findings of a committee that says they missed numerous inspections.

(SALEM, Ore.) - The Federal Aviation Administration is being called to task in accounting for what one federal legislator called "lax inspection procedures for commercial airliners." Congressman Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.) said today that he will hold hearings on April 3rd, to find out why Southwest Airlines was allowed to keep flying aircraft that should have been grounded for maintenance and inspection.

In addition to representing Minnesota's 8th Congressional District, Oberstar is chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which has jurisdiction over commercial air travel.

Investigators for that committee say they found that between June 18th 2006 and March 14th 2007, FAA inspectors allowed Southwest Airlines to keep flying 46 aircraft after the date they were due to be inspected for structural flaws in their fuselage.

Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly appeared on CNN's "This Morning" to address the penalty proposed by the FAA for what it calls "failed compliance" of certain FAA directives that Southwest rectified in April 2007. The directives involved one of what Kelly calls, "many routine, redundant, and overlapping inspections on 46 of Southwest's more than 500 aircraft."

But the inspectors working with Oberstar say that during that same period, another 70 aircraft were allowed into the air past the dates they were due for inspections of their rudder systems.

"Inspections of those sections of the aircraft were mandated after a series of fatal accidents in 1988, 1991 and 1994 that claimed a total of 158 lives." they reported.

SouthWest Airlines' Gary Kelly countered by saying the company has a 37-year history of very safe operations, "one of the safest operations in the world, and we're safer today than we've ever been. In this particular situation, we identified a gap in our documentation. We voluntarily reported that to the FAA. We worked out with the FAA how to fix that problem, and we fixed it."

He says they were surprised yesterday to get that notification of a proposed penalty by the FAA as well.

"The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that as late as last month the FAA said that it had no safety issues with Southwest Airlines. So, I've ordered an investigation as to exactly what happened with this event. It occurred in March of 2007. These aircraft are inspected inch by inch, and in this particular incident over 99 percent of the inspections were completed according to the documentation. When we discovered the error, we went back and re-inspected those aircraft, and we did that in a matter of 10 days."

Oberstar did go so far as to say that the problem may not be limited to Southwest Airlines, and that their investigation uncovered a pattern of regulatory abuse.

"What is so disturbing is that many FAA inspectors have given up reporting failures by the carriers because there is such a cozy relationship between FAA management and airline management."

In past hearings Oberstar says members of the committee have asked FAA officials if they need additional funding for the inspection program, but they have not given straightforward responses.

It may well be that choked federal funding for the agency responsible for the safety of thousands of daily air commuters is just insufficient. Are they somehow not allowed to publicly disclose that? It seems strange that any offers of increased funding from a Congressional committee would at least be worthy of discussion.

"The FAA knows; the chief of safety at FAA knows that they do not have enough inspectors," Oberstar said. "Yet in response to questions from [Aviation Subcommittee Chairman Jerry] Costello, about how many additional safety inspectors are needed, they reply that they cannot state that, they are not at liberty to disclose that."

Oberstar says additional legislation may be needed to ensure that airlines maintain the highest level of safety possible for the traveling public.

Kelly says as far as SW Airlines knew, they were operating above the board. "Again, our interpretation of the guidance that we got from the FAA at the time was that we were in compliance with all laws and regulations. I think the FAA has a different view of that today. That's something that we're investigating as well, but the important point is that at no time were we operating in an unsafe manner, and I think our history proves that."