Intellectual Property Law

Salon's aviation expert, pilot Patrick Smith, has offered his thoughts on whether Southwest put passengers in danger when it continued to fly planes that it knew had fatigue cracks in their fuselage.

As I wrote last week, the FAA has fined Southwest $10.2 million for safety violations that include failing to conduct mandatory inspections and continuing to fly planes that the airline knew hadn't been inspected for fuselage cracks and fatigue. (After Southwest finally inspected the planes it discovered cracks in some of them, yet continued to fly them.) Investigators at the Federal Aviation Administration have also been accused by internal whistleblowers of being too cozy with the airline and failing to provide proper oversight of Southwest.

After the FAA announced its fine, Southwest grounded more than three dozen planes last week to conduct additional inspections -- these involved skin around the plane's windows that Boeing had suggested be inspected in a bulletin released back in 2002.

The bottom line of all of this, of course, is: Did Southwest -- and the FAA by extension -- endanger passengers who flew on planes that hadn't been inspected and that the airline knew had cracks in them?

Smith says probably not. He also doesn't see a problem with FAA inspectors having a cozy relationship with the airlines they oversee. In fact, he says a cozy relationship is necessary:

Some have accused the agency of tacitly allowing the carrier to operate in violation of its own mandates -- in other words, it knew but allowed it to happen.

But in practice, for the system to function properly that relationship needs to be a close one. In many ways, air safety depends on a level of mutual trust between airlines and their regulators, and nothing would be more detrimental than an environment of confrontation and intimidation.

Photo: AP

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