Alarming cracks appear in system of safety tests for aircraft

AMERICA:DOMESTIC air travel in the United States, already a nightmare of delays, cancellations and poor service, got a little worse this week when United Airlines grounded its 52 Boeing 777s for safety tests.

United was the third major US airline to ground part of its fleet in recent weeks as the government's oversight of safety standards in the industry came under unprecedented scrutiny.

It emerged last month that low-cost carrier Southwest Airlines kept flying dozens of aircraft in need of inspection for fuselage cracks and on Thursday, a congressional committee heard from inspectors at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that they were threatened with dismissal after they found cracks in Southwest aircraft.

The scandal has shed light on some of the cost-cutting measures employed by US airlines, including the outsourcing of inspections to Latin American countries and the cosy relationship between the FAA and the airlines the agency regulates. More than four years ago, an FAA maintenance inspector who supervised Southwest, Charalambe "Bobby" Boutris, told his boss that he found discrepancies in Southwest's system for tracking its compliance with federal aviation regulations.

Boutris wanted to launch an investigation but his manager Douglas Gawadzinski, said no and later allowed Southwest to change its maintenance practices without formal FAA approval.

In March last year, when Boutris finally started an audit of its safety practices, Southwest admitted that some of its Boeing 737 fleet may have missed a federally required inspection but Gawadzinski allowed the airline to escape punishment for the violation.

Southwest inspected 46 aircraft but did not stop flying them, although it found cracks in the skin of six aircraft. A few weeks later, Boutris was suspended following an anonymous complaint but was later cleared of any wrongdoing and reinstated. "I'm here to report that more than one inspector looked the other way for years," Boutris told the congressional hearing.

Another FAA official who investigated Southwest, Douglas Peters, testified about how a supervisor issued a veiled threat last year while holding Peters' family photos.

"You have a good job here and your wife has a good job," Peters said the manager told him. "I'd hate to see you jeopardise your and her careers." An FAA initiative begun in 2003 to smooth relations with airlines was partly responsible for the cosy relationship between Southwest and its inspectors.

Under the Customer Service Initiative, airlines are often referred to as the FAA's "customers" and Boutris said the agency sometimes seemed more concerned with serving the airlines than their passengers.

"We are told that the airlines are our customers," he said. "But we have a more important customer, the taxpayers."

The FAA has admitted it allowed more than 1,000 aircraft to fly with cracks in the skin, prompting House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman James Oberstar to ask what the agency thinks it is doing.

"You're looking at safety as a system, and the system itself has cracks," he said.

Southwest's executive chairman, Herb Kelleher, admitted that the airline made mistakes but insisted that it did nothing unsafe, adding that "regulatory noncompliance and being unsafe are two different things".

He said that Southwest had replaced portions of the skins of older aircraft to avoid having to inspect them so frequently, but had forgotten a small area that had not been replaced and still needed inspection.

Kelleher pointed out that Southwest has had only one fatal accident in its 37-year history but Boutris suggested that it was unclear 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."

Calvin Scovel, the Transportation Department's inspector general, said the FAA relies too heavily on airlines to report safety problems and that the agency has a pattern of excessive leniency at the expense of effective oversight and enforcement.

"FAA must take steps to improve how it investigates safety issues and protects employees who bring important safety issues to light," he said. "FAA must take actions to improve oversight of all air carriers, strengthen the use of partnership programmes and restore confidence in the agency's ability to conduct oversight."