Reporters Christopher Conkey and Andy Pasztor over at the Wall Street Journal set the scene as we take the pulse of today's FAA and the airline industry it's charged with overseeing:
As it addresses concerns over airline inspections, the Federal Aviation Administration faces pressure from Congress and industry to change how it ensures the safety of air travel and how it overhauls the aging air-traffic-control system.
The agency was already dealing with a protracted labor battle, resistance to its congestion-relief initiatives and Democratic opposition to President Bush's nominee to head the FAA. Then, revelations surfaced this month that an FAA supervisor had let Southwest Airlines Co. keep flying older jets even though they had missed required inspections.
The FAA and airlines immediately afterward suggested the issue was a rare oversight. The FAA inspectors' union and the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee said a wider problem existed.
The agency changed course this week, initiating industry-wide maintenance audits at every airline.
In addition to Southwest, the article goes on to say that US Airways has since underperformed during an FAA spot check of its maintenance records. And, in related news, United announced the grounding of several of its 747s due to maintenance issues yesterday. Soaring fuel costs. Higher ticket prices. Cuts in service. Maintenance issues.
The difficulties mount for the airline industry -- and the FAA.
In educational interest, article(s) quoted from extensively.
First, a look back at the scandal over improper FAA maintenance inspections at Southwest. Associated Press:
More background via Kim Zetter at Wired:
...[T]he FAA has fined Southwest $10.2 million for safety violations that include failing to conduct mandatory inspections and continuing to fly planes that the airline knew hadn't been inspected for fuselage cracks and fatigue. (After Southwest finally inspected the planes it discovered cracks in some of them, yet continued to fly them.) Investigators at the Federal Aviation Administration have also been accused by internal whistleblowers of being too cozy with the airline and failing to provide proper oversight of Southwest.
After the FAA announced its fine, Southwest grounded more than three dozen planes last week to conduct additional inspections -- these involved skin around the plane's windows that Boeing had suggested be inspected in a bulletin released back in 2002. ...
According to the FAA's findings, the airline had flown nearly four dozen jets on more than 59,000 flights before it realized that it hadn't conducted required safety inspections on the planes. Then, even after the airline became aware that it hadn't conducted inspections, it continued to fly 38 Boeing jets on a total of 1,451 flights without checking the planes.
When the airline finally got around to inspecting the planes, it found cracks in half a dozen of them -- including one crack that was nearly four inches long. ...[A] similar fracture caused an Aloha Airlines jet to rip apart in 1988.
Re: UAL, Julie Johnsson at Chicago Tribune reports:
United Airlines pulled aside seven Boeing 747s for reinspection on Thursday after discovering onboard technology that steers the giant aircraft clear of other planes in the air hadn't been maintained according to the Chicago-based airline's standards. ...
United acted after FAA inspectors discovered the Korean firm that handles heavy maintenance on United's jumbo jets had used improperly inspected equipment to test the systems that help the jets avoid midair collisions. The systems are critical given the recent push by regulators to reduce the amount of space between aircraft to help reduce overcrowding in the skies.
The test equipment at a facility operated by Korean Air in Busan, Korea, is used to calibrate the United 747s' altitude and air data computers to the precise level needed to let the planes fly within 1,000 feet vertically of other aircraft, instead of the 2,000-foot vertical separation that used to be the industry standard. ...
Airline maintenance is drawing fresh scrutiny from Congress and organized labor as carriers increasingly shift work to outside vendors, including maintenance shops based overseas. Critics contend that the quality of work is slipping because overtaxed FAA inspectors can't monitor work scattered across many repair stations as effectively as maintenance done in-house by airline workers.
The two unions vying to represent United's mechanics in a special election were quick to criticize the airline and federal inspectors for Wednesday's actions. "The issue is the FAA does not have the ability to monitor these facilities," said Joseph Prisco, president of Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association Local 9 in San Francisco.
Picking it up again with the WSJ:
Attention now is focusing on the agency's process for conducting inspections, the Air Transportation Oversight System, which relies on data submitted by the airlines. The system calls for the agency's roughly 3,000 inspectors to spend more time analyzing industry-provided data than conducting physical inspections. The inspectors' union, passenger groups and some lawmakers say that has essentially abdicated a regulatory role to the industry.
They take information from the carriers, put them into formulas and do very focused inspections," said Linda Goodrich, a vice president of the union that represents most FAA inspectors. "The carrier knows when we're showing up and exactly what we're going after."
Dave Michaels and Terry Maxon of the Dallas Morning News offer a revealing look at the genesis of the Air Transport Oversight System. In the interest of education, I'll quote a healthy passage, but recommend your reading the entire detail-heavy piece:
The FAA began moving away from its confrontational, cop-on-the-beat approach to policing the airlines after the 1996 ValuJet crash in Florida that killed 110 people. Even then, the FAA took blame for going easy on airlines in order to promote commercial aviation.
The FAA was faulted for poor oversight of ValuJet, an airline that grew quickly and farmed out almost all of its maintenance. The agency admitted that it didn't have enough inspectors to monitor the airline. It later prohibited the shipment of oxygen generators in cargo holds, where a fire started that brought down the plane.
"In a system as large as ours, you can't inspect every individual part or flight or airplane," said Andrew Steinberg, a former U.S. assistant secretary of transportation who left the agency this year. "Clearly you need some spot-checking, like there are traffic cops on the highways," he said. "But the basic framework for safety is to make sure the airlines' programs are in place to ensure safety."
The post-ValuJet era introduced big changes.
FAA inspectors now file fewer "enforcements," as investigations bearing sanctions are known. Instead, they're supposed to focus on the most serious risks – ones that cause accidents – by analyzing data provided by the airlines. The airlines are encouraged to self-report regulatory violations. By doing so, the companies can avoid fines. But they also learn lessons that prevent accidents, FAA officials said.
Peggy Gilligan, the FAA's deputy associate administrator for aviation safety, said the approach strikes a balance between enforcement and information sharing, because "we have learned over the years that you can't enforce perfect safety." The equilibrium allows the FAA to "learn lessons before we see risk manifest itself as incidents or accidents," Ms. Gilligan said this week.
Even critics say that new approach, known as the Air Transportation Oversight System, makes sense. With ValuJet, a start-up airline that grew quickly, "it was impossible to get a handle on the enormous amount of stuff going on," Ms. Goodrich said. "We had no way to prioritize the risk."
Read the entire breathtaking piece.
[UPDATE Mar 26, 2008] Another airline, this time American, finds itself grounding its MD-80's for inspections today:
American Airlines canceled approximately 200 flights this morning to reinspect wiring on its fleet of MD-80 aircraft. Inspections take a few hours, and the company is rotating its MD-80 aircraft back into service as soon as they are cleared.
The need for the unscheduled inspections emerged during a Federal Aviation Administration audit of the Fort Worth, Texas-based airline's maintenance records. ... The FAA said today this was not a safety issue and explained that the inspection concerns a wiring bundle in the airplanes' wheel well. The airline is required to secure every one inch, and the aircraft in question may have had the bundles secured every 1 1/4 or 1 1/2 inches.
The FAA is taking extra precautions on the heels of accusations that Southwest Airlines missed, or failed to document, airplane inspections. That prompted the FAA to announce it was proposing a $10.2 million fine against the carrier -- the largest fine ever imposed against a passenger airline.
Last week, the FAA announced a more far-reaching audit to ensure all airlines — more than 100 of them — are complying with maintenance requirements. ... American Airlines said "many inspections have already been completed and the aircraft are currently in service," according to its statement. "We are in the process of completing the inspections on the remaining airplanes and will return them to service on a rolling basis throughout the day."
The company operates 300 MD-80 aircraft, all of which are part of this reinspection. Congress plans to further examine airline inspection issues next month.
From the Associated Press:
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