Southwest, FAA Relationship Cited in Probe

From the Washington Post: A cozy relationship between the Federal Aviation Administration and Southwest Airlines led to safety lapses last year that put thousands of passengers at risk, according to a government report released yesterday. The Department of Transportation’s inspector general office said the FAA developed “an overly collaborative relationship” with Southwest. The FAA said earlier this year that its inspectors improperly allowed Southwest to fly 46 Boeing 737 jets that needed to be inspected for fuselage cracks. The inspector general’s report listed proposals aimed at beefing up government supervision of the FAA’s main safety systems, which encourage airlines to voluntarily report safety issues without penalties. The report also calls for a “cooling-off period” of perhaps two years that would prohibit FAA inspectors from being hired by the same airlines they oversaw as government employees. The report also recommended rotating inspectors and establishing an independent organization to investigate safety issues identified by FAA employees.
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