Mar 12, 2008 5:08 pm US/Central
Southwest Airlines Grounds 44 Planes
Move Follows Reports That Airline Failed To Inspect Planes For Cracks
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
Southwest Airlines, which is the biggest carrier at Chicago's Midway Airport, voluntarily grounded 44 planes in the wake of its recent admission that it had missed required inspections of some planes for structural cracks.
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.
CBS 2's Dorothy Tucker reports there are more than 200 Southwest flights in and out of Chicago every day. So when the airline grounded 44 planes across the country for safety inspections, the impact at Midway was minimal.
Three flights were canceled there. When passengers learned that safety was the reason, most didn't mind the inconvenience.
"Certainly better safe than sorry," said passenger Mike Hudson. "I'd rather have an inspected aircraft than leave an hour ealier."
"As a passenger I would want to have my safety be first," said Casey Nelson. "So if it's about my safety, ground the flights to make sure the planes are safe."
Of the 44 jets in question, Southwest says 38 were in active service, five were already in maintenance for other scheduled checks and one was already retired.
The grounded planes represent about 4 percent of Southwest's fleet. The company said at the end of last year it had 520 Boeing 737 jets. Nearly 200 of them are older models, the Boeing 737-300, that were supposed to undergo extra inspections for cracks in the fuselage.
Southwest Chief Executive Gary Kelly had said Tuesday he was concerned by findings from an internal investigation into the missed inspections. He announced that the Dallas-based company had placed three employees on paid leave while it investigated the situation.
Some of the inspections are taking place Wednesday at the maintenance facility at Midway.
"Those particular tests are on a small part of the aircraft where we've been asked to look for any cracking which normally occurs on an aircraft and just inspecting those -- and if we discover any, we're immediately repairing them," said Vice President of Communications for Southwest Airlines Ginger Hardage.
The company is also working on restoring the public's confidence.
"We have an outstanding safety record, and we want to make sure we always have an outstanding safety record," Hardage said. "So, we're going though every one of our directives and making sure that there is no stone left unturned."
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.
CBS 2's Dorothy Tucker and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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