Southwest Airlines puts 3 employees on leave after safety probe
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10:27 AM CDT on Wednesday, March 12, 2008
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By TERRY MAXON and DAVE MICHAELS / The Dallas Morning News
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Under fire from regulators and a congressional committee, Southwest Airlines admitted Tuesday to concerns about lapses in regulatory compliance and placed three managerial employees on leave.
The airline's announcement constitutes a sharp turn from its initial reaction in February to news reports that a U.S. House committee was looking into its compliance with federal safety directives.
Southwest chief executive Gary Kelly said he doesn't like what he's seen so far from an internal investigation that began on Friday. In particular, he said he was "concerned with some of our findings" about how Southwest handles so-called airworthiness directives and other regulations.
"I have insisted that we have the appropriate maintenance organizational and governance structure in place to ensure that the right decisions are being made," Mr. Kelly said.
The Federal Aviation Administration last week proposed a $10.2 million penalty against the Dallas Love Field-based carrier for flying 46 Boeing 737 airplanes without required inspections for fuselage metal cracks.
The FAA alleged that after Southwest reported a year ago that it had missed the mandatory inspections, it improperly continued flying the aircraft for more than a week before completing the fuselage testing.
Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has sharply criticized both the FAA and Southwest, suggesting that the regulator and the airline have a too-cozy relationship that compromises safety.
The panel committee plans a hearing April 3 to look into allegations from FAA whistle-blowers that FAA officials repeatedly overlooked safety problems at Southwest.
The committee is looking into what the whistle-blowers call a history of cronyism between the FAA's maintenance inspectors in Dallas and Southwest Airlines.
Douglas Peters, one of the whistle-blowers, told investigators that an FAA maintenance supervisor pushed for a lower fine than inspectors recommended against Southwest for a separate set of maintenance violations that occurred in 2001 and 2003.
Southwest settled those cases with a fine of $300,000, according to an FAA enforcement report. The inspectors had recommended a fine of $886,000, according to Mr. Peters' statement.
Airworthiness directives are legally enforceable orders to correct safety problems involving aircraft. The FAA says it issues such directives when "an unsafe condition exists in the product and … the condition is likely to exist or develop in other products of the same type design."
Southwest told the FAA in May 2007 — after its self-disclosure — that it had conducted a "comprehensive review" of its maintenance procedures, engineering guidelines and airworthiness-directive compliance.
The Southwest managers told the FAA that they had made changes to procedures that, "if properly followed, are adequate to preclude a similar event in the future," according to a report submitted to the FAA.
Managers on leave
The FAA's principal maintenance inspector responsible for Southwest Airlines, Douglas T. Gawadzinski, accepted the airline's review.
Several Southwest employees were responsible for the March 2007 decision to self-disclose the violations and to follow up with a "comprehensive fix."
The employees named in the carrier's March report to the FAA include Bill Krivanek, the airline's team leader for compliance with airworthiness directives, and Paul Comeau, a regulatory compliance official who previously worked at the FAA's office overseeing Southwest Airlines.
The carrier said it had placed the three unnamed employees on leave and said those employees "are cooperating with the investigation." A person familiar with the situation indicated that the three were managers.
The committee is looking into allegations that Mr. Gawadzinski eased up enforcement on Southwest after Mr. Comeau, his former employee, joined the airline, according to committee aides and documents.
But the latest disclosure from Mr. Kelly indicated that Southwest was finding problems as it scrutinized its own procedures.
Southwest said Tuesday it has "fully engaged with the FAA on its current audit of Southwest and committed to FAA leadership that it will investigate and address any deficiencies in its maintenance controls."
In addition, Southwest said it had hired "a respected outside consultant with proven experience to help review its maintenance program controls, especially airworthiness directive compliance."
The outside consultant, JDA Aviation Technology Solutions, is headed by former FAA deputy administrator Joseph Del Balzo, who was acting FAA administrator in 1993.
In February, when news of the federal investigation broke, the carrier said it had promptly made the necessary fixes to its jets and insisted that it was solely responsible for bringing the problems to the FAA's attention.
Others with JDA include former National Transportation Safety Board member John Goglia and former NTSB senior air safety investigator Greg Feith, as well as other ex-FAA and industry people.
A consultant for the International Air Transport Association reviewed Southwest's program for complying with airworthiness directives in December and didn't find any gaps in standards.
But the scope of the review was limited, however, said L. Nick Lacey, chief operating officer for the consultant, Morten Beyer & Agnew.
"If there are some bad actors along the way, that can compromise any well thought-out system," Mr. Lacey said. "But the system as it was industrially engineered was very impressive."
House committee
Jim Berard, a spokesman for Mr. Oberstar, said the airline's action Tuesday appears to support the committee's investigative findings.
The committee still plans to question Southwest in at its April hearing.
"We are looking forward to exploring the issue more thoroughly at our hearing," Mr. Berard said.
Southwest spokeswoman Beth Harbin declined to elaborate on the reasons the employees were put on leave.
"We're in the process of an investigation," she said. "They are cooperating with that investigation. We have not made any final decisions or conclusions. We just felt it was the right thing to do."
The airline's decision was announced a day before its lobbyists were to start visiting House members to brief them about the situation.
Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Dallas, plans to meet with the airline's representatives today, an aide said.
Terry Maxon reported from Dallas, and Dave Michaels from Washington, D.C.
