COMMENTARY: FAA must be a better watchdog

AUSTIN, Texas — It's not often that we salute folks for doing their jobs. But it is appropriate to applaud a few very courageous Federal Aviation Administration inspectors, who risked their careers by exposing problems at Southwest Airlines and the FAA, their employer.

Their actions spurred airlines to clean up their acts and the FAA to toughen oversight of passenger carriers.

At a congressional hearing last week, the public got a rare, candid look at safety problems. Veteran FAA inspector Charlambe "Bobby" Boutris told lawmakers that FAA supervisors looked the other way while Southwest Airlines neglected to inspect planes. He added that Southwest continued to fly them after discovering cracks in some of the aircraft.

When he would not back off, FAA supervisors threatened to relieve him of his duties. He was removed from his assignment for five months and was the target of a death threat. The inspections were meant to prevent another serious accident, such as the one in 1987 in which a huge section of the fuselage peeled off an Aloha Airlines plane in flight.

Another inspector, Douglas Peters, gave similar testimony about the FAA's cozy relationship with Southwest and lack of oversight of the airline. He told lawmakers that his job, as well as his wife's job at the FAA, were threatened by a manager who warned them against pursuing ethics complaints against FAA managers.

Clearly those inspectors understood the importance of their work and that of the FAA as a watchdog for the public. In sticking to their guns and doing their jobs, those inspectors triggered changes throughout the airline industry that are making it safer for the flying public.

The FAA has since launched a special inspection program that has led other airlines to ground hundreds of planes while conducting required inspections of their fleets. We're encouraged that the airlines are being responsive.

All of this raises questions about whether the FAA relies too heavily on self-disclosure procedures and whether the agency has become too friendly with the industry it is supposed to regulate. Those are questions Congress must address.

For its part, Southwest has apologized and grounded planes to complete required inspections. The airline faces a $10.2 million fine for flying planes without performing inspections of the fuselage skin. Herb Kelleher, Southwest's executive chairman, noted the airline's "superlative 37-year" safety record.

It's true that Southwest has a great safety record and that, along with high customer satisfaction, has helped the airline rise from a small Texas carrier to one of the nation's largest, transporting nearly 100 million passengers a year. In Austin, Southwest counts about 500,000 local boardings annually.

Even so, airlines are unlike any other industry when it comes to safety. If the public perceives that an airline is cutting corners, passengers will go elsewhere.

This editorial appeared in the Austin American-Statesman.