Tomorrow the full House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will be called to order by Chairman Jim Oberstar. In the wake of today's United Airlines 777 fleet grounding (after the airline found that checks to its fire-suppression system were not completed as required), the Critical Lapses in FAA Safety Oversight of Airlines: Abuses of Regulatory "Partnership Programs" hearing couldn't come at a better time.
The hearing follows lapses in FAA oversight of maintenance at Southwest Airlines, which resulted in the carrier's grounding of aircraft on March 11, 2008:
Southwest Airlines says it grounded 41 planes last night as the airline deals with fallout from using aircraft that had not gone through a required inspection for possible structural damage. Spokeswoman Christi Day says the move resulted in some flights being canceled Wednesday, but she doesn't have a precise figure.
The move comes as Southwest faces a $10.2 million civil penalty for continuing to fly nearly 50 planes after the airline admitted that it had missed required inspections of the planes for structural cracks. Southwest also put three employees on leave after being notified of the penalty by the Federal Aviation Administration.
The Committee's live webcast stream begins Thursday morning at 10 a.m. EST.
In educational interest, article(s) quoted from extensively.
Dave Michaels and Terry Maxon over at the Dallas Morning News give some background on the time leading up to the grounding:
The Dallas-based airline is reeling from regulatory and congressional investigations of its decision last year to continue flying planes – some with fuselage cracks – that should have been grounded pending inspections. ...
Wednesday's action addresses a different directive from the inspections that the airline missed last year. Southwest said it grounded the jets after confronting some confusion Tuesday night about the way the inspections should be done. The airline visually inspected areas above and below the aircraft's windows, but noticed that the regulation also required a more sensitive test using electrical "eddy" currents that detect hidden defects.
"The inspections were done," Ms. Harbin said. "It was the method of the inspection – visual versus eddy current – that we had the question about." ...
In March 2007, Southwest disclosed the failures that prompted the fine. That reporting should have prompted the airline to ground the jets until they could be checked. But with the tacit approval of an FAA supervisor in Irving, Southwest kept flying the aircraft as it did the inspections over about eight days.
CNN fleshes out the situation:
The FAA has said Southwest operated 46 Boeing 737s on nearly 60,000 flights between June 2006 and March 2007 while failing to comply with an FAA directive requiring repeated inspections of fuselage areas to detect fatigue cracking.
The FAA also alleges that after Southwest discovered it had failed to comply, it continued to operate the same planes on an additional 1,451 flights in March 2007. The airline later found that six of the 46 planes had fatigue cracks, the FAA said.
Documents provided to CNN show that another 70 Southwest jets were allowed to fly past the deadline for the mandatory rudder inspections. Those documents also say that 47 planes -- one more than reported by the FAA -- flew without their mandatory fuselage inspections. In some cases, according to the documents the FAA provided to congressional investigators, the planes flew for 30 months past government inspection deadlines and should have grounded them until the inspections could be completed.
The documents were prepared by two FAA safety inspectors who have requested whistle-blower status from the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Both inspectors have been subpoenaed to testify before the committee.
Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minnesota, who heads the committee and who has called the situation "one of the worst safety violations" he has ever seen, is scheduled to hold a hearing April 3 to ask why the airline may have allegedly put its passengers in danger. The whistle-blowers say FAA managers knew about the lapse in safety at Southwest, but decided to allow the airline to conduct the safety checks on a slower schedule because taking "aircraft out of service would have disrupted Southwest Airlines' flight schedule."
Hearing details:
The Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure will meet on Thursday, April 3, 2008, at 10:00 a.m. in room 2167 of the Rayburn House Office Building to review the results of an oversight investigation into questions of conduct violating the Federal Aviation Regulations in the inspection and maintenance program.
Witnesses slated (written testimonies will post after hearing):
Panel 1
Mr. Charalambe "Bobby" Boutris, Aviation Safety Inspector and Boeing 737-700 Partial Program Manager for Aircraft, Southwest Airlines Certificate Management Office
Mr. Douglas E. Peters, Aviation Safety Inspector and Boeing 757 Partial Program Manager, American Airlines Certification Unit, AMR CMO
Mr. Michael C. Mills, Assistant Manager, Dallas Fort Worth Flight Standards District Office
Mr. Paul E. Cotti, Supervisor, American Eagle Airworthiness Unit, AMR CMO
Mr. Robert A. Naccache, Ret. Assistant Manager, SWA CMO
Mr. Terry D. Lambert, Manager, Safety and Analysis Group, Flight Standards Division
FAA Southwest Region
Panel 2
The Honorable Calvin L. Scovel III, Inspector General, U.S. Department of Transportation
The Honorable Scott J. Bloch, Special Counsel, U.S. Office of the Special Counsel
Mr. Nicholas A. Sabatini, Associate Administrator for Aviation Safety, Federal Aviation Administration
Mr. James J. Ballough, Director, Flight Standards Service, Federal Aviation Administration
Mr. Thomas Stuckey, Manager, Flight Standards Division, FAA Southwest Region
Panel 3
Mr. Herb Kelleher, Executive Chairman, Southwest Airlines Co.
Mr. Gary Kelly, Chief Executive Officer, Southwest Airlines Co.
Mr. Vincent Larry Collamore, Aviation Safety Inspector, SWA CMO
Mr. John Bassler, Principal Avionics Inspector, Dallas Fort Worth, FSDO
Panel 4
Mr. Tom Brantley, President, Professional Aviation Safety Specialists
Mr. Richard A. Andrews, Aviation Safety Inspector, American Eagle Operation Unit Professional Aviation Safety Specialists
Mr. Joseph P. Thrash, Ret. Aviaton Safety Inspector, Continental Airlines CMO
Mr. Bill McNease, Ret. Aviation Safety Inspector, FedEx CMO
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