Southwest grounds 41 jets (Inspections missed for cracks in fuselage)

[seafan]

Source: St. Petersburg Times (AP)

DALLAS (AP) -- Southwest Airlines grounded 41 planes overnight - about 8 percent of its fleet - in the wake of its recent admission that it had missed required inspections of some planes for structural cracks.

Southwest shares fell 4 percent in midday trading.

The move announced Wednesday comes as Southwest faces a $10.2 million civil penalty for continuing to fly nearly 50 planes after the airline told regulators that it had missed required inspections of the planes.
The Federal Aviation Administration, which announced the penalty last week, has also come under fire for failing to immediately ground the Southwest jets when it learned they had not been inspected for cracks in the fuselage.

.....

Acting FAA Administrator Robert A. Sturgell called the events "a twofold breakdown in the aviation system" - first, Southwest's failure to properly inspect its planes; and the FAA's failure to ground the jets as "at least one FAA inspector looked the other way."

The $10.2 million penalty is the largest the FAA has ever imposed on a carrier. Southwest has said it will appeal.

Read more: http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FAA_SOUTHWEST_AIRLINES?SITE=FLPET&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2008-03-12-13-13-00

[BOSSHOG]

1. But why should there be any oversight at all? Why penalties

As limbaugh would say hey let the market prevail. If those planes crash and kill a whole bunch of people those people won't fly SWA again. Don't need no stinkin oversight, just republican values! Keep the government out of the airline business, just let em crash.

[napi21]

2. They should be damn glad to pay that $10.2 million too! It would have

been one heck of a lot more had their negligence caused a crash or two! This sounds to me like what happened to Eastern Airlines many years ago! Cut corners everywhere you can! You remember what happened to Eastern, don't ya?

[flashl]

3. That's a switch in position, last week SW said it removed employee who made the bad decisions

and they were completely in compliance.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

4. Yo! Magnaflux THIS!!!

Southwest has enough inspectors to ensure the passengers are properly and modestly attired.

HEY SOUTHWEST! Check out the fuselage on the aircraft, not on the customers!


:rofl:

[DeepModem Mom]

5. K&R