FAA inspectors: Southwest tried to hide safety pro

[Kip Powick]

Southwest Airlines tried to keep serious problems with its maintenance program hidden and pressured the Federal Aviation Administration to keep out an inspector who noticed the problems, according to two FAA inspectors who blew the whistle on the airline.

The FAA is seeking a $10.2 million penalty against Southwest Airlines, one of the nation's busiest airlines.

Bobby Boutris and Douglas Peters told CNN Wednesday they brought information about Southwest's lack of compliance with mandatory inspection protocols to their supervisors, but the FAA did nothing.

Boutris said the airline tried to have him removed from the inspections.

"My supervisor called me into his office ... and told me he had had a meeting with the director of quality assurance and the AD [airworthiness directive] compliance leader from Southwest Airlines, and he had requested my removal from the inspection," Boutris said.

Linda Rutherford, Southwest's public relations vice president, wouldn't comment on the inspectors' allegations, noting that company Chairman Herb Kelleher and CEO Gary Kelly would be testifying Thursday before a House panel convened to look into the issue.

"Out of respect for the congressional hearing process, we will present testimony there, both oral and in writing, that addresses many of the questions being asked," she said. "Out of respect for the committee hearing process, we need to let those questions wait for the committee."

CNN was unable to reach the FAA for a comment Wednesday night, but earlier in the day, acting administrator Robert Sturgell would not discuss specifics of the Southwest matter.

"We had a breakdown in the system with Southwest Airlines. It was a two-way breakdown," Sturgell said, without elaborating.

Boutris and Peters, along with representatives from the FAA, are also scheduled to testify at Thursday's House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which conducted an investigation after the two inspectors brought forward their concerns.

Peters said he doubted anything would have changed if he and Boutris had not spoken up.

"Bobby and I were not happy with the state of Southwest Airlines' maintenance program," Peters told CNN Wednesday. "We weren't happy. And we saw the airline was at risk due to the lax oversight. And because of this, we just weren't willing to accept anything other than sweeping change." Watch Boutris ask: Why didn't FAA ground Southwest planes? »

In early March, CNN obtained documents from the House committee investigation that alleged the discount airline kept dozens of aircraft in the air without mandatory inspections -- and in some cases, with defects the inspections were designed to detect.

Boutris and Peters said FAA managers knew the Southwest planes were flying illegally and did nothing about it, according to the documents.

The inspectors wrote that Southwest, which carried more passengers in the United States last year than any other airline, flew at least 70 planes without a mandatory inspection on the rudder unit, part of the steering mechanism, some of them as much as 30 months beyond the mandatory rudder inspection.

The airline also flew at least 47 planes beyond a mandatory inspection of the fuselage, or skin, of the planes for possible cracks, the inspectors said. When the inspections were carried out, six of the planes were found to have possibly dangerous cracks, they said.

Speaking with CNN Wednesday, Boutris questioned why the airline did not immediately ground those 47 planes when they learned they were out of compliance.

"It is sad that an FAA inspector has to become a whistle blower in order to do his job," Boutris told CNN. "And the job is -- that we were hired by the taxpayers -- to ensure the airlines provide safe transportation for the flying public. It shouldn't have to come to this."

Boutris and Peters are seeking protection via the federal whistle blower protection program.

After the initial revelations, the FAA proposed a $10.2 million fine -- its biggest ever against an airline -- against Southwest for flying Boeing 737s without mandatory checks for fuselage cracking. Later, the agency ordered its inspectors to ensure airlines were complying with 10 airworthiness directives -- orders to check or correct a known unsafe condition -- and to expand the review to include more directives thereafter.

Sturgell, speaking at a news conference Wednesday, said the audit showed 99 percent compliance with federal airworthiness directives. There is room for improvement, said Sturgell, adding he is proposing several initiatives to strengthen the reporting role and regulatory process.

[Specs]

FAA admits breakdown in safety regulation, oversight of Southwest

11:05 AM CDT on Friday, April 4, 2008

By DAVE MICHAELS / The Dallas Morning News

dmichaels@dallasnews.com

WASHINGTON – Under tough questioning from Congress, top federal regulators admitted Thursday to an embarrassing, years-long breakdown in their oversight of Southwest Airlines.

The Federal Aviation Administration's top safety officer, Nicholas A. Sabatini, acknowledged that "we didn't know the gravity of what was going on" in the Irving office supervising Southwest. One FAA manager fought with other supervisors and repeatedly blocked his inspectors' investigations of the airline.

That pattern came to a head last year, when the manager allowed Southwest to continue flying planes after it disclosed a failure to completely inspect dozens of planes. The manager permitted Southwest to escape penalty by self-reporting the error, even though his inspectors had questioned the airline's internal controls for preventing such failures.

"It is misfeasance, malfeasance, bordering on corruption," said Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which held the hearing. "If this were a grand jury proceeding, I think it would result in an indictment."

The FAA admitted to serious lapses only a day after asserting that its oversight model was strong and saying that Mr. Oberstar's investigation was irrelevant to reforms it announced Wednesday. Dallas-based Southwest faces a $10.2 million fine for its role in the controversy.

"What has happened here was egregious, and we will apply the full measure of the law," said Mr. Sabatini, associate administrator for air safety.

Herb Kelleher, the airline's executive chairman and co-founder, apologized for the airline's lapse but said the company never risked the safety of passengers.

"While there was clearly a mistake with our regulatory compliance, we wanted to assure ourselves that safety of flight was not an issue, and we have done that," Mr. Kelleher said.

The stars of Thursday's hearing were clearly two FAA maintenance inspectors who blew the whistle on problems at Southwest, Charalambe "Bobby" Boutris and Douglas E. Peters.

Mr. Boutris said he raised questions for years about the airline's internal controls before supervisors removed him from his job based on anonymous allegations that a federal watchdog later called "baseless." Mr. Boutris later reported a death threat that is being investigated by the FBI. On Thursday, Mr. Sabatini called him a "hero."

"There is no accountability through the ranks in the FAA," Mr. Boutris told the lawmakers.

Mr. Peters said an FAA manager tried to discourage him from filing a complaint about the treatment Southwest received and "unethical actions" by inspectors.

He said the manager pointed to a photo of Mr. Peters' wife and children and suggested that an attempt to push the issue could "jeopardize yours and her career trying to take down a couple of losers."

Mr. Peters filed his complaint anyway, and later alerted congressional investigators to the problems. He said Thursday that "senior FAA management knew about the issues within the Southwest" oversight office for years and didn't do anything about them.

The inspectors' allegations were mostly supported by independent investigations by the U.S. Department of Transportation's inspector general and the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.

Calvin L. Scovel III, the inspector general, told lawmakers that the FAA's Irving office was in turmoil.

"A bigger struggle was being waged for the heart and soul of that organization," Mr. Scovel said. "Not much, if anything, was coming up to [FAA] headquarters."

One inspector who requested a transfer from the Southwest office reported seeing his manager "giving the middle finger" to another supervisor and complained about "militant attitudes" that undermined the group's work.

Mr. Scovel's review also raised questions about the FAA's approach to oversight. He highlighted abuses of the FAA's regulatory partnership programs, which allow airlines and air crews to escape punishment by self-reporting errors.

The inspector general's review found that the FAA allowed Southwest to self-disclose errors without making sure that previous problems were fixed.

"A partnership program that does not ensure underlying problems are corrected is less likely to achieve the objective of improving the margin of safety," Mr. Scovel said.

The former top manager in Mr. Boutris' office, Michael C. Mills, blamed Mr. Boutris' former supervisor, Douglas T. Gawadzinski, for abusing the partnership programs.

Mr. Gawadzinski was "unusually lenient with the carrier in several areas, especially in investigating and documenting violations of the federal aviation regulations," Mr. Mills said.

The inspector general found that Mr. Mills ordered reviews of Mr. Gawadzinski's decisions as early as 2005. Those reviews found problems, but the FAA didn't remove Mr. Gawadzinski until last year, when he was transferred during an investigation of the Southwest issues.

Mr. Gawadzinski was not called to testify and has declined to comment.

Several lawmakers appeared nonplussed by how the FAA's top leaders in Washington couldn't have known about the problems roiling the Irving office.

"What do you have to do to get fired there?" asked Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Dallas.

Mr. Kelleher and Gary Kelly, the airline's chief executive, both said they were unaware until this week of widespread problems in the FAA office that monitored Southwest.

Recognizing how the controversy has shaken the airline, Mr. Kelleher began his remarks by reminding lawmakers of its "superlative, 37-year" safety record, and the impact of its business model in reducing airline fares over the years.

Mr. Kelleher criticized reports that his airline failed to inspect the jets. The problem was much smaller, he said.

Because of a record-keeping error, Southwest has said the airline failed to survey a piece of fuselage that amounted to less than 1 percent of the area that needed to be checked.

"That was our mistake, but nobody realized it for quite some time," Mr. Kelleher said. The carrier wasn't just "rumbling around the skies ... not having inspected cracks on its airplanes."

Mr. Kelleher also said Southwest's Boeing 737 jets were manufactured so that small cracks would not become large ones.

In a briefing with reporters, Mr. Boutris suggested that it wasn't clear how serious the risk was.

"I would be concerned, especially when the airplane has cracks in it," he said. "There is no data that shows how long an airplane can fly with cracks in the fuselage."

Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Mr. Kelleher suggested that lawmakers had used Southwest's mistakes to raise larger questions about the FAA's oversight model.

"This of course, with respect to Southwest, happened to pop up at an appropriate time to raise that issue," he said.

The witnesses appeared split about whether the problems in the Irving office demanded a wider look at oversight offices. Several inspectors said that office was unique in terms of the atmosphere that prevented inspectors from doing their work.

"What I have been told is that it could potentially be systemic, and I take that very seriously," Mr. Sabatini said.

TIMELINE

Federal investigations traced a four-year period during which regulatory supervision of Southwest Airlines in North Texas broke down. Investigations by Congress, the U.S. Department of Transportation's inspector general and the Federal Aviation Administration found:

Dec. 2003 –An FAA maintenance inspector who supervised Southwest, Charalambe "Bobby" Boutris, informed his boss that he found discrepancies in Southwest's system for tracking its compliance with federal aviation regulations. He pushed for an investigation, but his manager didn't approve one.

Early 2005 –Mr. Boutris found that his manager, Douglas T. Gawadzinski, allowed Southwest to change its maintenance practices without formal FAA approval. A higher-ranking supervisor later confirmed it.

Sept. 2005 –A new manager in the oversight office, Michael Mills, raised questions about Mr. Gawadzinski's decision to let Southwest escape penalties for regulatory lapses.

Dec. 2005 –An internal FAA review found that Mr. Gawadzinski misclassified five Southwest violations as "carrier notifications," which don't require the airline to fix the problem.

Jan. 2006 –Mr. Gawadzinski again prevented Mr. Boutris from starting an investigation of Southwest's compliance with airworthiness directives.

June 2006 –An FAA regional team found personnel conflicts in the office. One employee reported to federal investigators that "Southwest was using these relationship tensions to its advantage."

Jan. 2007 –Mr. Gawadzinski assigned Mr. Boutris to an audit of Southwest's procedures for following airworthiness directives. Southwest asked for him to be removed, but Mr. Boutris remained on the task.

March 15, 2007 –Southwest told Mr. Gawadzinski that some of its Boeing 737 fleet may have missed a federally required inspection. The airline found the error while preparing for Mr. Boutris' review.

March 19, 2007 –Mr. Gawadzinski allowed the airline to escape punishment for the violation. Southwest scheduled inspections for 46 jets but didn't stop flying them – a violation of federal rules.

March 23, 2007 –The inspections found cracks in the skin of six planes.

March 28, 2007 –Based on an anonymous complaint, Mr. Boutris was removed from his job and put under investigation. He was later cleared.

April 2007 –Another FAA regional team returned to the Irving office and found that "the office environment had actually worsened" over concerns about the way Southwest's problems were handled. The FAA began an investigation of Mr. Gawadzinski's handling of the case.

June 2007 –Another inspector, Douglas E. Peters, went to congressional investigators about problems with oversight of Southwest.

Feb. 2008 –Rep. James Oberstar, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, announced a hearing expected to be critical of FAA oversight.

March 6, 2008 –The FAA announced a $10.2 million fine against Southwest for flying planes that missed some fuselage checks.

April 2, 2008 –The FAA announced reforms to address the safety lapses, including a rule to prevent inspectors from going to work immediately for airlines they supervised.

April 3, 2008 –Mr. Boutris and Mr. Peters testified at a hearing led by Mr. Oberstar.

[Guest rattler]

FAA official loses regional job

April 07, 2008: 08:35 PM EST

Apr. 7, 2008 (Thomson Financial delivered by Newstex) --

DALLAS (AP) - A Federal Aviation Administration official who was criticized last week for the agency's handling of missed inspections at Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE:LUV) has been reassigned, an agency spokeswoman said.

Thomas Stuckey is still working at the FAA but is no longer the agency's director of flight standards for the five-state southwest region, FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said Monday.

Brown said Stuckey was moved to 'an administrative position that doesn't have safety oversight.' She declined to comment on the reasons for the move.

Stuckey did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

At a congressional hearing last week, Stuckey's management of safety regulation at the FAA's Fort Worth regional office was criticized. An inspector testified Stuckey didn't answer several e-mails raising concerns about lax enforcement of Southwest, and a supervisor criticized his management style. The employees eventually took their complaints to Congress.

Last month, the FAA hit Southwest Airlines with a $10.2 million civil penalty for flying planes that had missed safety inspections. Officials at the Dallas-based carrier say they made a mistake to keep operating the planes but that passenger safety was not compromised.

Stuckey is at least the second official at the FAA's Fort Worth office to be reassigned as the Southwest case has unfolded. The chief maintenance inspector, Douglas Gawadzinski, still works for the FAA but has no responsibility for safety decisions, a top agency official said last week.

The regional office oversees safety of everything from commercial jetliners to small private planes in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.

Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

[CD]

Culture clash strains FAA/airline oversight

The US Federal Aviation Administration is being buffeted by growing pains related to its evolution from a forensic to a prognostic aviation safety agency, increasingly fuelled by voluntarily submitted data from airlines rather than inspectors on the floor.

All 118 airlines in the USA are participants in the FAA's airline transport oversight system (ATOS), which prioritises inspector work assignments using assessment tools that rely in part on voluntary reporting mechanisms by the airlines.

"The days of going out and randomly touching an airplane and hoping to find something are long, long gone," said FAA associate administrator for safety, Nicholas Sabatini, at a press conference last week on the eve of a contentious congressional hearing called "Critical lapses in FAA's safety oversight of airlines".

Key revelations in the 3 April hearing at the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee included apparent rule and ethics violations by an FAA employee at the agency's Southwest Certificate Management Office (CMO), the facility charged with overseeing Southwest Airlines.

Issues centred around a "cosy" relationship between the FAA supervisory principal maintenance inspector (SPMI) for Southwest and carrier's manager of regulatory compliance, a former FAA employee who went to work directly for Southwest in 2006 after resigning from his government job.

Two whistleblowers had raised issues last year about Southwest's non-compliance with two airworthiness directives - inspections for cracks in the aircraft's fuselage and inspections of a backup rudder power control unit - both critical to flight safety.

Alerted to the problem, the SPMI in both cases handled the situation by closing the case and encouraging Southwest to file voluntary disclosure reports to the FAA rather than opening an investigation into the matter, a move that allowed Southwest to avoid a potential fine.

The airline then continued to fly the aircraft in revenue service for thousands of flights before the inspections were carried out, in violation of FAA rules.

Southwest later grounded dozens of aircraft to verify AD compliance after an internal review, as have other carriers with different fleets, including American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Air Lines.

"I think they see the FAA waking up after this [southwest ADs] incident last year," said Department of Transportation Inspector General Calvin Scovel at the House hearing.

"FAA properly recognises that AD compliance is a vulnerability. My count stands at 565 aircraft that have been grounded."

The FAA last week launched a five-point plan intended to fix the AD oversight problem. Included is a restriction that will prevent FAA inspectors from taking a job with the airline they are overseeing for at least two years after leaving the federal government.

By the end of April, the FAA says it will deploy a safety issues reporting system that will give employees an additional mechanism to raise safety concerns to management.

Other initiatives include new guidance for "awareness and sensitivity" to voluntary disclosure reports, a "plain language" review of ADs and an expansion of a database that will link safety issue reports with other safety databases.

The agency last week revealed that an initial audit of AD compliance, launched after media reports about the Southwest groundings, showed that 99% of the ADs reviewed - 10 for each aircraft type at each of the 118 carriers - had been complied with.

Phase two of the inspection program, which will have inspector look at 10% of all ADs that apply to each airline is set to be complete on 30 June, said Sabatini, who added that he is confident the results of the next round of audits to be completed in June will be "similar."

Scovel's recommendations, that were presented at the hearing, include establishing an independent organisation to investigate "safety issues identified by its employees", periodically rotating supervisory inspectors into other jobs to reduce the potential for excessively close ties to the airlines, implementing a process for a secondary review of airline self-disclosures before they are accepted or closed and developing a national review team that conducts periodic reviews of the FAA's oversight functions.

Regarding the proper mix of self-reporting programmes and inspectors on the ground, Scovell said: "I don't think the FAA has found the right formula yet.

Properly used, ATOS has the potential to target inspectors to the areas of greatest need, then get them to the shop floor."

Scovell said the Office of the Inspector General first audited the ATOS programme in 2002, and that a recommendation to set up a programme for nationwide oversight for ATOS has not been implemented at the FAA.

Exacerbating the oversight problem, according to lawmakers, is a culture change at the FAA that took place in 2003, promoted by then administrator Marion Blakey.

Called the FAA "Customer Service Initiative", the programme was an attempt in part to make the FAA more consistent in terms of its interface with "customers", including the public, airframers and airlines.

Specifically, the initiative gave customers the right to ask for a review of any decision by an inspector.

During testimony at the hearing, it came to light that Southwest at one point called the FAA to request the removal of a whistleblower inspector who had alerted management of AD non-compliance.

The inspector was subsequently removed from the job. "That was an abuse of what the customer service initiative was meant to be," said Sabatini, adding that the agency would "recalibrate" its internal guidance referring to airlines as "customers".

Full article here...

[deicer]

Yup,,,,,

Definitely a strong arguement for more privitisation and cutbacks on government

Iceman

[Canus Chinookus]

Yup,,,,,

Definitely a strong arguement for more privitisation and cutbacks on government

Iceman

errr, yeah, things are always run better when the government is in charge!

[Specs]

Legislators POV

Newsweek

Some interesting points as to how the slide began.