The agency has acknowledged some of the problems cited by the inspectors. Nicholas A. Sabatini, the associate administrator for safety, said before the hearing that "it was a failure on the part of individuals in my organization and midlevel managers at Southwest." But the system, he said, is still extremely safe.
Part of the problem, according to several safety experts, is that the FAA now relies heavily on the airlines to inspect themselves and report their problems. They say the agency's 2,800 inspectors spend more time reviewing airline records than checking airplanes.
The criticism has been unusually severe, given that the airlines have had an extremely good safety record in recent years, with no major crashes since 2001.
The agency has stressed that it is attempting to find safety problems before crashes rather than afterward.
In fact, the rate of fatal accidents per flight dropped by more than 60 percent in the 10 years that ended Sept. 30.
But the inspectors insisted that problems run deeper. "Despite the fact that our databases are full of positive findings, the current events are proving us wrong," said one inspector, Charalambe Boutris. The airlines failed to comply with "airworthiness directives," or ADs, orders that are issued after crashes or after one carrier discovers a problem so that fixes are instituted on all planes. Boutris pointed out that there were "hundreds of aircraft taken out of service with AD compliance issues."
"The majority of the ADs are the result of catastrophic accidents, and as the industry saying goes, ADs are written in blood," he said.
"No supervisor can do what my supervisor was doing without the support of fellow inspectors and the division management team," he said.
Another inspector, Douglas E. Peters, testified that even after the FAA manager had been removed, the replacement manager threatened him. The replacement pointed to a photo of Peters' family, pointed out that both Peters and Peters' wife had good jobs at the FAA, and said, "I'd hate to see you jeopardize yours and her careers" by pursuing ethics complaints against FAA managers.
Southwest, which was also scheduled to testify, has acknowledged errors but contends it did nothing unsafe. Herb D. Kelleher, executive chairman of the company, said before the hearing, "Regulatory noncompliance and being unsafe are two different things."
