Potentially unsafe Southwest Airlines planes OK'd to fly, panel told

WASHINGTON, Apr 04, 2008 (Fort Worth Star-Telegram - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- LUV | news | PowerRating | PR Charts -- Midlevel officials with the Federal Aviation Administration allowed Southwest Airlines to continue flying potentially unsafe airplanes and suppressed subordinates' efforts to correct the problem, a congressional oversight committee was told Thursday.

"If this were a grand-jury proceeding, I think it would result in an indictment," Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said midway through testimony by nearly 20 witnesses.

Southwest Airlines' executive chairman, Herb Kelleher, and chief executive, Gary Kelly, defended the safety record of the Dallas-based carrier, which faces a record $10.2 million penalty from the FAA for flying planes that should have been inspected for fuselage cracks.

Kelleher told the committee that the airline "screwed up" by continuing to fly planes that should have been grounded. But he said the FAA's regional office gave the go-ahead for the flights while Southwest sought to fix what he described as tiny cracks that had been reported to the agency.

"We should not have [continued the flights], and we have learned our lesson," Kelleher said. "I apologize to this committee. I realize these planes should not have flown."

He also said he wanted to counter any impression that Southwest is "just rumbling around the skies" with cracks in uninspected planes, saying the company's aircraft are "inspected over and over and over again."

But several FAA employees, including two inspectors testifying as government whistle-blowers, presented a picture of lax enforcement, sloppy documentation and collaboration between Southwest and the FAA Certificate Management Office. The office, near Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, is responsible for overseeing the airline's compliance with FAA safety regulations.

"I am here today because I am concerned for the safety of the flying public," said FAA inspector Bobby Boutris, who, along with fellow whistle-blower Douglas Peters, exposed the allegations that led to Thursday's hearing. Boutris later told reporters that he received a death threat in the mail but declined to provide further details.

Other FAA employees supported their account that principal maintenance inspector Douglas Gawadzinski and other supervisory officials were friends of Southwest personnel and unresponsive in looking into possible safety problems.

Nicholas Sabatini, the FAA's associate administrator for aviation safety, said the accounts detailed by the employees showed a pattern of "egregious" behavior and promised to pursue the allegations "with the full measure of the law." He called Boutris "a hero."

Several lawmakers appeared astonished to learn that Gawadzinski remains with the FAA. He has been reassigned and has no authority over safety, Sabatini said.

"What do you have to do to get fired there?" asked Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Dallas. Sabatini said Gawadzinski cannot be dismissed until the FAA completes its internal investigation.

Last month, the FAA levied the penalty against Southwest for continuing to fly aircraft that should have been inspected for cracks that, if uncorrected, could cause the fuselage to rupture. But Oberstar and other congressional critics said that the problems were first detected more than a year ago and suggested that the FAA moved to penalize the airline only after the whistle-blowers stepped forward.

Calvin Scovel, inspector general for the Transportation Department, which includes the FAA, said 46 aircraft flew in violation of the airline directive requiring fuselage inspections, carrying an estimated 6 million passengers on more than 60,000 flights.

Kelleher and Kelly, in their opening statement, said Southwest inspects "every inch of its aircraft" for cracks but inadvertently missed "a small area" because of a record-keeping error. "It is ... important to dispel the impression that we did not inspect our airplanes for skin cracks," the two Southwest executives said. "Nothing could be further from the truth."

They said they didn't learn the details of the situation until February and March, after the FAA levied its penalty and Oberstar held a news conference to outline the whistle-blower allegations.

"Two issues had to be addressed immediately," they said. "The first was that better judgment should have been exercised than to allow those aircraft to fly after the potential noncompliance was discovered. The second was that senior management should have been consulted on such a significant issue but was not."

Boutris and other FAA employees said Southwest also flew 70 airliners past the timetable for submitting them for inspection for a component of the rudder system.

The hearing raised questions about the FAA's voluntary disclosure policy that allows airlines to escape penalties if they detect a problem first and report it to the FAA for correction. The FAA whistle-blowers, as well as the inspector general's review, said Southwest reported the fuselage cracks but were allowed to keep flying the planes in what Boutris called a "known unsafe condition" instead of having them grounded.

Scovel said his review showed that Gawadzinsky "should have immediately grounded the aircraft and notified his management of the seriousness of the situation." The inspector general also criticized the FAA for what he called "an overly collaborative relationship" with Southwest.

"I put most of the blame on the FAA," Johnson said.

Oberstar praised the FAA employees for their "courage" in stepping forward in the face of what they described as intimidation and, in some cases, retaliation by their superiors. Peters struggled to control his emotions as he told of a supervisor who picked up a picture of Peters' family and suggested that he could "jeopardize" his career at FAA by pursuing the issue.

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