Ask the pilot

Did Southwest put its passengers in danger when it recently ran afoul of the FAA?

By Patrick Smith

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March 21, 2008 | Southwest Airlines is in trouble. As you've probably heard, the nation's sixth largest carrier was forced to temporarily ground dozens of Boeing 737 jetliners that had not been properly inspected. The airline has since issued an open apology to customers, while the Federal Aviation Administration is proposing a record $10.2 million fine. "The FAA is taking action against Southwest Airlines," said Nicholas Sabatini, the agency's associate administrator, "for failing to follow rules that are designed to protect passengers and crew. We expect the airline industry to fully comply with all FAA directives and take corrective action."

In this case, the directives he's talking about pertain to fuselage fatigue inspections that are specific to 737s. Such inspections were mandated in the aftermath of a 1988 Aloha Airlines incident. Cracking along lap joints in the Aloha plane's outer skin caused an 18-foot section of the cabin to peel away during flight, resulting in the death of a flight attendant and one of the most heart-stopping emergency landings of all time. The aircraft had been in service for 19 years, and completed tens of thousands of short-haul inter-island flights. Repeated pressurization cycles, possibly exacerbated by long-term exposure to corrosive salt in Hawaii's sea breezes, allowed the crack to propagate. Since then, airline maintenance procedures have been revised to better monitor structural fatigue. Boeing and the FAA developed a careful schedule of inspections dependent on both total airframe hours and number of takeoffs and landings, or "cycles," as they're called.

Southwest had not been following this schedule. According to the FAA, the infraction involves 46 737s used on nearly 60,000 revenue flights between 2006 and 2007. Even after the lapse was discovered, Southwest allowed several of the jets to continue flying -- six of them with known fatigue cracks.

Southwest's 737s are newer on average than the "classic" model involved in the Aloha mishap, but Southwest too specializes in shorter-haul flights -- lots of them. All airlines strive to keep their planes in the air as much as possible, but Southwest does this while also maximizing cycles. It has one of the highest aircraft utilization rates in the industry, scheduling as little as 30 minutes between legs. Thus, its fleet runs a higher risk than most of developing fatigue problems.

On the face of it, the airline's behavior seems reckless and indefensible -- "the most serious lapse of safety I have observed," in the words of Rep. James Oberstar, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. But is it really as bad as it sounds?

Well, probably not. Southwest says it believed it was in compliance with the FAA's guidelines, and that the inspection lapses were entirely unintentional. Of the cracks that were discovered, they were deemed minor enough that repairs could be made later. It is highly doubtful that any of the aircraft were in dangerous condition. That's not an excuse; if Southwest broke any rules, inadvertently or otherwise, it needs to be held accountable. But for those of you who may have been passengers on those planes, and fear that your lives were put at risk, the situation is a bit more nuanced than the terrifying headlines -- "Carrier Flew Unairworthy Planes" -- seem to imply. Were policies violated? It appears so. Were lives endangered? In all likelihood, no.

To put this another way: Would I, as an airline pilot, agree to fly an airplane with a known fatigue crack? The answer is maybe. If a technician was able to explain to me why the fatigue crack was not an urgent matter, and show me, in his manuals and guidelines, where it said that I was authorized to fly the plane, then yes, I would. On the other hand, would I agree to fly that same airplane, in the same condition, in knowing violation of a regulation? No. And that, it appears, is where Southwest went over the line.

Passengers might be surprised to learn that jetliners are routinely dispatched with inoperative or malfunctioning components. As any pilot knows, airplanes are not machines of utter perfection. They are not intended to be. Anything so large and complex, incorporating thousands of components, cannot be expected to operate infallibly on every occasion. Should something break, from a coffee maker to a fuel pump, an entire protocol of checks and balances is in place to determine whether and how a flight may safely commence.

Next page: No respectable airline will pressure a crew to operate any flight