WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON -- Three veteran Federal Aviation Administration inspectors told lawmakers yesterday 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 their FAA 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 FAA 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 in which 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.
The FAA then announced an "audit" of compliance with its orders, leading Delta and American to ground scores of planes because of the possibility of missed inspections. United Airlines had to re-evaluate seven Boeing 747s for a slightly different reason, when an inspector found that their altimeters had been checked by a repair shop owned by Korean Air Lines using an instrument that had not been calibrated.
The testimony, some of which had been foreshadowed by news accounts, came amid intense scrutiny of airlines' inspection procedures and sharp criticism from Congress of the quality of FAA oversight. Southwest and other airlines have suspended hundreds of flights while undertaking inspections that critics say were long overdue.
The hearing was held by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, whose chairman, Rep. James L. Oberstar, said: "The opening paragraph of the FAA Act of 1958 directs the newly established agency to maintain safety at the highest possible level. Not the level the airlines want to spend money on, not the level the airlines think is OK, but the highest possible level." The Minnesota Democrat said the agency had become too "cozy" with the airlines.
