ATW Daily News

FAA removes official from oversight post as fallout from SWA case continues

Wednesday April 9, 2008

US FAA removed Southwest Region Manager-Flight Standards Thomas Stuckey from his position, the latest fallout from the ongoing controversy over the agency's oversight of Southwest Airlines.

The agency's Dallas area office was portrayed as dysfunctional and plagued by "regulatory abuse" at a House of Representatives hearing last week (ATWOnline, April 7). Stuckey, who testified at the hearing along with other FAA officials, has been placed in an "administrative position that has no safety oversight duties," FAA said. He was accused by inspectors from the SWA Certificate Management Office of ignoring their repeated complaints that their supervisors were "looking the other way" when confronted with evidence that the airline was not complying with airworthiness directives. The inspectors further alleged that supervisors harassed and threatened to terminate those who wanted to report safety lapses.

Dept. of Transportation Inspector General Calvin Scovel said Stuckey, who is based in Dallas and had oversight responsibilities for five states, and FAA officials in Washington should have been aware of the problems at the SWA CMO. "Red flags were flying and should have been warning signs to FAA," he said. "There's a disconnect between FAA headquarters in Washington and what happens out in the field and we saw that at Southwest. There's been a consistent lack of desire [at headquarters] to exercise ownership for problems [at regional offices]."

Douglas Peters, an inspector in the SWA CMO, told lawmakers that there was an "intentional and blatant disregard for national policy" at the CMO. "The fact that FAA management knew about these issues in the Southwest field office is undisputed," he alleged. "I don't see how the FAA can be trusted to police itself."

House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman James Oberstar (D-Minn.) said the agency's problems are more pervasive. "The FAA would have us believe that what took place was an isolated incident that has been corrected," he said. "Clearly this is not an isolated incident. . .but rather a systematic breakdown of the FAA's oversight role. It is malfeasance bordering on corruption."

Scovel said that until its recent audit of domestic airlines' compliance with ADs, FAA hadn't conducted a review of SWA's AD compliance program since 1999 even though such a review is required at least once every five years. The year 2004 "should have been a drop-dead date" but the lapse was allowed to continue for another four years, he said at last week's hearing, asking, "Why didn't higher authorities at FAA know that?"

by Aaron Karp

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