FAA probing 11 airlines for violating safety rules

The United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the aviation watchdog of the United States, is investigating 17 cases in which 11 airlines did not comply with the US government’s safety directives.

FAA investigates airlines

However, the FAA did not identify the erring carriers.

The Federal Aviation Administration said in a press release that it detected the   cases during a major drive by the FAA to verify whether air carriers followed the agency’s safety orders as required.

The FAA’s audit inquiries covered about 10% of the airline regulator’s safety directives.

The Federal Aviation Administration is the agency of the United States Department of Transportation with authority to regulate and oversee all aspects of civil aviation in the United States.

In the first phase of the inquiry conducted in the spring of 2008, the FAA had found seven instances in which four carriers had not complied with safety orders.

The regulatory agency held 5,600 audits of airworthiness directives at the different airlines from March 13, 2008, through June 3, 2008.

According to the FA, the issues of non-compliance during the audits were categorised into cases “where additional records were needed to prove compliance; cases where the air carrier did the work, but had to apply for an alternate means of compliance approval; situations where the airworthiness directive work was not done, but the airplane was not flying; and other minor discrepancies not involving airworthiness directives.”

“The rest 2% of audits initially raised red flags,” but the FAA says those issues were resolved before the airplanes flew again.

“Despite the 98% in-compliance rating,” the FAA said it “is moving forward with initiatives that regulators hope will improve the clarity and understanding of safety directives.”

According to Robert Sturgell, administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, the carriers had followed 98% of the 5,600 safety directives audited by the agency.

In the FAA press release, Robert Sturgell elaborated: “The relatively few cases in which safety directives were not followed indicates there is a high level of safety in the air traffic system. The United States has not experienced a major airline accident in over two years. These kinds of numbers are not an accident; it’s not a miracle, it’s not luck. It is the result of an entire team effort – the government, the industry, Congress, everybody involved in the aviation system – producing the safety net we have today.”

The website nytimes.com quoted David Castelveter, a spokesman for the Air Transport Association (ATA), the trade organisation representing the principle United State-based airlines, as saying that the ATA “is pleased with the FAA’s audit findings.”

Castelveter observed: “Besides the 17 cases, most of the discrepancies uncovered by the audits are generally technical and did not impact safety. Nevertheless, they serve as a useful reminder that we can always do better.”

The Federal Aviation Administration has been under attack from members of US Congress who alleged that the agency “has treated the airlines as clients, fostering a cozy relationship at odds with vigilant safety enforcement.”

Inspectors of the FAA had testified at a US Congressional hearing in April 2008 that their jobs were threatened when they reported maintenance and inspection problems with some airlines.

Recently, the Federal Aviation Administration took certain bold measures against erring airlines.

In the spring of 2008, the regulator ordered the audit of maintenance records at all domestic airlines after it received reports of missed safety inspections at Southwest Airlines, the low-cost airline based in Dallas, Texas, the United States.

The FAA imposed a record fine of $10.2 million fine on Southwest Airlines for continuing to fly dozens of Boeing 737 jets – which carried an estimated 145,000 passengers – that had not been inspected for cracks in their fuselages.

In August 2008, the FAA ordered American Airlines, the world’s largest airline, to pay a fine of $7.1 million for flying planes even after safety problems were reported and also for drug-testing violations.