VERY FRIENDLY SKIES
Southwest's Cozy Ties
Triggered FAA Tumult
Airline's Interference
Led to Wider Probe;
Job Favors at Issue
By ANDY PASZTOR April 3, 2008; Page A1
The Federal Aviation Administration's mission is to
watch closely for maintenance lapses and other safety problems at U.S.
airlines. But last summer, two FAA inspectors allege, Southwest Airlines was trying to pick and choose which inspectors would do the watching.
Annoyed by one FAA inspector it considered
adversarial, Southwest complained in June to local FAA managers,
sharing the airline's detailed records about the activities of that
inspector. That incident and others like it, described by the two
inspectors, have now kicked up a storm of controversy about the close
relationship between the FAA and the carriers it regulates, rattling
the industry and sparking broad debate about the adequacy of airline
regulation.
The two inspectors, who were assigned to monitor
Southwest, have given government investigators a detailed chronicle of
what they say was a struggle to correct maintenance problems at the
airline. In two lengthy statements, which were reviewed by The Wall
Street Journal, they accuse the FAA of having too cozy a relationship
with the low-fare carrier, which they say thwarted efforts to correct
problems and compromised passenger safety.
The resulting tumult has buffeted other carriers,
worrying passengers and focusing public attention on how the FAA does
its job. (See related article.)
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee plans to hold a
hearing Thursday to investigate the issues raised by the two
inspectors. Both men will tell their stories publicly for the first
time. In addition, there will be testimony from government
investigators, FAA managers and Southwest officials, including Herb
Kelleher, the airline's co-founder and executive chairman.
Rep. James Oberstar, the Minnesota Democrat who is
chairman of the panel, complained on Tuesday about "complacency, cozy
relationships with the airlines and inappropriate reliance on voluntary
disclosure" by airlines of safety problems. "We need a change of
attitude at the highest levels of the FAA," said Rep. Oberstar.
FAA officials have said repeatedly that the Southwest
problems were an anomaly, but the agency nevertheless is moving to try
to prevent such problems from occurring again. On Wednesday, it
unveiled steps to make it easier for inspectors to get their concerns
heard within the agency.
The maintenance lapses identified by the two FAA
inspectors -- Douglas Peters and Charalambe "Bobby" Boutris -- have
resulted in a proposed $10.2 million civil penalty against Southwest
for failing to complete mandatory structural inspections of 46
aircraft. On Tuesday, Rep. Oberstar indicated that further
investigation is under way into the decision by Southwest officials and
their local FAA counterparts to continue carrying tens of thousands of
passengers on the 46 jets without completing inspections. "It's a
law-enforcement investigation," he said, explaining why the panel opted
not to subpoena one of the principal FAA decision makers.
In an interview Wednesday night, Mr. Peters said the
Southwest episode shows "how much in bed the FAA really is with the
carriers."
Southwest spokeswoman Linda Rutherford declined on
Wednesday to respond to written questions about the allegations made by
the two inspectors, including their descriptions of actions taken by
several Southwest employees. The company, she said, had not yet seen
the documents containing the allegations.
"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. "It would be
premature of Southwest Airlines to discuss its testimony prior to the
hearing." In addition, she said, "some of the information you request
involves personnel information that we cannot share."
The maintenance slip-ups at Southwest didn't result in
any accidents or emergency incidents, but six of the planes required
repairs. Dozens of others were long overdue for checks of backup
rudder-control mechanisms.
The FAA subsequently ordered spot checks of
maintenance records at all U.S. carriers. In recent weeks, airlines
have canceled flights and pulled planes out of service to make sure
safety checks had been performed properly. The FAA indicated on
Wednesday that the initial reviews had revealed few signs of poor
compliance by the airlines.
Self-Regulation
Driven by budget and policy considerations, the FAA
wants to move further in the direction of allowing airlines to
self-regulate their activities, with the FAA analyzing safety and
maintenance data to spot trends. If the Southwest controversy casts
lasting doubt on information coming from industry, this enforcement
strategy could be threatened.
The agency said that two FAA managers involved with
Southwest have been punished, and that no similar problems of biased or
lackadaisical enforcement cropped up in the reviews completed recently
of maintenance at other carriers.
Acting FAA Administrator Robert Sturgell told
reporters Wednesday that the missteps involving Southwest resulted from
"a two-way breakdown" in safety-monitoring by the airline and the
agency. The fix, he said, will require "an increase in the
accountability of all parties, the FAA included." One possible step, he
said, would be tightening ethics rules involving FAA inspectors who
later take airline jobs.
Mr. Peters, the FAA inspector, gave a detailed account
of his experience with Southwest to a special agent for the FAA. Mr.
Boutris, his fellow inspector, provided his own account in a letter to
the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, a federal agency that investigates
whistle-blower complaints from government employees. Both men painted
an unflattering picture of the FAA office in Irving, Texas, which is
near Southwest's headquarters in Dallas. The office, they claim,
sometimes overlooked problems or went easy on Southwest.
Mr. Boutris informed investigators that over three
years, he provided 38 examples of problems to his regional bosses, but
didn't receive a single response. "They apply Band-Aids instead of
fixing the root of the problem," he wrote.
First Clash
Mr. Peters joined the FAA in 2001. He was a
data-evaluation program manager at the FAA office responsible for
Southwest, and now works in another FAA office supervising American 757
jets.
Mr. Peters indicated in his statement that he first
clashed with his FAA supervisor, principal maintenance inspector
Douglas Gawadzinski, back in 2003. The issue, he said, was how much to
penalize Southwest for a violation Mr. Peters wrote up stemming from a
lightning strike on one aircraft. A senior Southwest official had
agreed the company would pay the full $886,000 civil penalty demanded
by FAA lawyers, as long as the agency wouldn't issue the normally
required press release, according to Mr. Peters. The company was told
that wasn't acceptable.
According to Mr. Peters, immediately after that
meeting, Mr. Gawadzinski pulled Southwest's maintenance chief aside and
told him that the airline would pay only $132,000. Weeks later, Mr.
Gawadzinski suggested to Mr. Peters, with a wink, that he had used a
ruse to have a press release on the reduced penalty put out briefly,
but then had rescinded it due to a "typographical error," according to
Mr. Peters's statement. Mr. Peters said Mr. Gawadzinski told him the
agency had met its legal requirement, and another release "wasn't going
to be put out."
An FAA spokeswoman said Tuesday she couldn't find any
record of a press release about the matter. Efforts to reach Mr.
Gawadzinski through the FAA were unsuccessful. The agency spokeswoman
said he has been reassigned because of the problems at Southwest and
"is not involved in any safety inspection activities." He isn't slated
to testify at Thursday's hearing.
Mr. Boutris, the other inspector, had previously
worked as a maintenance inspector for several major U.S. and foreign
carriers. He was hired by the FAA in 1998. His current job is to
monitor maintenance on a portion of Southwest's jets.
In early 2004, Mr. Boutris also found himself at odds
with Mr. Gawadzinski. In his statement to investigators, Mr. Boutris
said he discovered maintenance-paperwork discrepancies between
different engine models and wanted to start an investigation. Mr.
Gawadzinski persuaded him to send Southwest a so-called "letter of
concern," which was a less serious step, he said. The matter ultimately
was resolved between the FAA and the carrier. Mr. Boutris said he
recalled Southwest's Bill Krivanek, head of the airline's compliance
team, saying he hoped the inspector's authority wouldn't expand beyond
engine issues. Mr. Krivanek didn't return a call seeking comment.
In their statements, both FAA inspectors said that
over the next few years, Southwest tried to pick inspectors to work
with whom it considered friendly, and to intimidate or push aside those
whom it saw as more aggressive enforcers. At times, FAA managers
ordered that specific inspectors be kept away from meetings to avoid
upsetting their Southwest counterparts, the two inspectors said. In a
few cases, they said, Mr. Gawadzinski dealt directly with the airline,
effectively cutting out his employees from the information flow. "There
is nothing for you to look into," Mr. Peters said he heard the
supervisor say. "Southwest Airlines already called me and I took care
of it."
By early 2006, Mr. Boutris was monitoring airframe and
systems maintenance on a portion of Southwest's Boeing 737 fleet. In
his account to investigators, which he provided last fall, he said he
began to notice discrepancies in records about structural repairs. Mr.
Gawadzinski, he said, wouldn't allow him to send a formal letter to
Southwest's management laying out his concerns.
The issue that eventually spurred Messrs. Boutris and
Peters to go outside of their home office with their concerns involved
the mandatory inspections of the skins of Southwest's roughly 200
oldest jetliners. The FAA imposed the inspection requirement in the
late 1980s, after it became clear that tiny surface cracks on jets
could grow significantly over time, endangering passengers.
In early 2007, Mr. Boutris said, he and Southwest's
Mr. Krivanek sparred over how to make sure that the structural
inspections and necessary repairs were done. At one point, Mr. Boutris
said, Mr. Krivanek requested but failed to get him assigned to
something else.
Mr. Boutris argued with Southwest over the extent of
the information he needed. A compromise was reached, and at 9 a.m. on
March 15, Mr. Boutris arrived at Southwest's facility to start poring
over maintenance records.
By this point, Paul Comeau, who had been an FAA
inspector in the local office, was working for Southwest as its manager
of regulatory compliance. Messrs. Peters and Boutris both contend, in
their statements to investigators, that Mr. Comeau's hiring resulted in
more-conciliatory FAA oversight. According to Mr. Boutris, Mr. Comeau
had had "a very close" working relationship with Mr. Gawadzinski when
both were at the FAA. In his new role, Mr. Comeau "directly interfaces
with our office on a daily basis," Mr. Boutris said. (Mr. Comeau is one
of three officials Southwest has placed on leave pending an internal
review.) Mr. Comeau didn't return calls seeking comment.
Voluntary Disclosure
The events leading to the current controversy began
the same day Mr. Boutris started looking through Southwest's files.
Within hours, Southwest alerted the FAA's Mr. Gawadzinski by phone that
required structural inspections may have been missed on as many as 100
Boeing 737s. According to one federal investigative report, the airline
told the FAA manager it had uncovered the problem, on its own, the day
before.
Four days later, Southwest submitted a "voluntary
disclosure" that said -- falsely, it would later turn out -- that all
the inspections had been completed, both the FAA and the airline now
say. The document was prepared by Messrs. Comeau and Gawadzinski,
according to Mr. Boutris.
The inspector said he began to realize that something
was amiss one week later when he conducted a late-night inspection at
Chicago's Midway airport and noticed mechanics repairing a fuselage
crack on a Boeing 737. Mr. Boutris said that when he analyzed
additional Southwest maintenance records, he discovered that
uninspected planes had remained in service.
Mr. Gawadzinski "did not even know how long these
aircraft had been flying out of compliance...and neither did" the
airline, Mr. Boutris later asserted to investigators. Southwest
initially gave contradictory numbers about the extent of the problem.
Under Investigation
Mr. Boutris said he was placed under investigation by
FAA superiors, who had received an anonymous complaint challenging his
performance and behavior. He was taken off inspection duties, he said,
and told to turn over his Southwest work to Mr. Gawadzinski. Mr.
Boutris said Wednesday that the investigation is over and no action was
taken against him.
By around this time, the problems at the FAA's Irving
office had attracted the attention of more senior FAA officials, who
sent in investigators. Later, Mr. Gawadzinski and one other manager
there were reassigned to different jobs.
Last fall, Mr. Boutris sent his detailed statement to
the Office of Special Counsel. "I have been subjected to reprisal by
management and harassment by co-workers," he wrote. For three years,
"the message I have been getting is not to 'rock the boat.' "
In a later report to Congress and the Department of
Transportation's Inspector General, the Office of Special Counsel
concluded that the allegations of Messrs. Boutris and Peters were
credible. Their disclosures indicate that the FAA "does not appear to
have held management and safety inspectors appropriately accountable
for their actions and inaction," the report said.
Late last year, the FAA launched an official
enforcement case against Southwest. Inside the agency, lawyers first
considered assessing a penalty of about $300,000, then raised the
proposed amount to about $3 million, according to people familiar with
the details. Mr. Sturgell, the FAA administrator, made a last-minute
decision to raise it above $10 million, these people said, partly
because investigations by the House panel and by the Department of
Transportation's inspector general were likely to spark a furor.
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