Federal Report Faults Southwest Airlines, FAA, Over Lax Safety Investigations

Southwest Airlines and the union representing its pilots have resisted cooperating with investigations into accidents and other incidents and pushed to close the matters quickly, federal officials said Wednesday.

The independent agency known as the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which represents federal whistleblowers, said it has generally substantiated claims from four whistleblowers who raised serious safety questions about the Federal Aviation Administration's oversight of the Dallas-based airline.

The whistleblowers complained the FAA allowed dozens of planes to fly without verifying they were safe and also allowed the airline to hide serious incidents of pilot mistakes.

A letter the agency sent to President Joe Biden sums up the allegations: that FAA officials “knowingly permitted SWA to engage in unsafe and improper actions that compromised the safety of the flying public."

Some of the whistleblower complaints go back years and have been investigated earlier. But this new report says a number of issues were unresolved or were dismissed under influence from the airline.

"This looks pretty serious,” said William Angelley, a former Navy pilot and now an aviation attorney in Dallas. "What jumps out at me is there's a culture here where the local FAA oversight of Southwest Airlines has become too cozy with the airline and they've allowed some of these things that are dangerous to the flying public to occur."

Southwest issued a statement on the report.

"In 2018, and thereafter, Southwest cooperated fully with regulatory and Congressional inquiries into the years-old allegations now being raised again,” the statement said. “Southwest was then and remains proud of its safety record. As part of our emphasis on safety, we have maintained a transparent and professional relationship with the FAA."

The airline said it has confidence in its pilots and operations and safety has been its top priority for its 51-year history.

The FAA released its own statement.

"The FAA took the Office of Special Counsel's concerns seriously and acted quickly to adopt the recommendations that resulted from the investigation,” it said. “The agency continues to work with the appropriate parties to resolve any outstanding issues."

The union representing Southwest pilots did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

CASES RAISED IN FEDERAL REPORT

In one instance disclosed Wednesday, the Federal Aviation Administration cut short an investigation of a 2019 incident in Connecticut even though the agency determined that there was pilot error. Both wings of the Southwest jet were damaged as pilots battling wind tried to land at Bradley International Airport, outside of Hartford.

The FAA said Southwest and union officials resisted interviews with agency representatives in that and other cases. Sometimes the delaying tactics worked. An investigation into why pilots placed duct tape over sensors outside a plane before a flight fizzled when the FAA employee took another job.

It reported another accident — a plane that went off the runway in Burbank, California — in which an FAA review was “fast-tracked” under pressure from Southwest. In a separate review of that incident, the National Transportation Review Board found that the co-pilot’s conduct was “highly unprofessional.”

The FAA said it agreed with some of the allegations raised by three whistleblowers and took corrective steps including more training and development of audits to ensure compliance with aviation-safety guidelines.

In a response to the special counsel’s office, the FAA said it found “mismanagement and lack of oversight” by the office monitoring Southwest that has persisted despite management and staff changes over the years. The FAA said new executives will provide “a fresh opportunity to evaluate” the oversight of Southwest.

Some of the whistleblower accusations have been leveled before, including Southwest’s use of planes bought overseas without verifying their maintenance and inspection records. In more than half of those cases, the airline found that the planes had undergone repair work that wasn’t documented or couldn’t be verified.

The FAA said some of the whistleblower allegations couldn’t be proven, including a claim that Southwest routinely assigns too much work for mechanics to handle.

A separate allegation that the FAA improperly certified Southwest for long overwater flights — approval the airline needed to sell flights to Hawaii — was examined by the Transportation Department’s inspector general, who could not verify the claim.

Southwest has faced questions about safety over the years and has paid millions to settle safety violations, however, it has a good record over its five-decade history.

No passenger had died in an accident involving a Southwest plane until 2018, when a woman was killed after an engine broke apart over Pennsylvania and debris shattered the window next to her seat. In 2005, a 6-year-old boy riding in a car was killed when a Southwest jet landing during a snowstorm in Chicago skidded off the runway, crashed through a fence and hit the car.