Research Proposal on "Southwest Airlines Failure to Inspect Aircraft"

/>FAA inspectors Bobby Boutris and Douglas Peters testified before Congress about their experiences, and asked for whistleblower status, meaning they cannot be fired from their jobs because of their testimony. Boutris was the first to question records kept by Southwest about airplane inspections. In 2003, he was in charge of inspecting engines for the 737, and he could not make sense out of Southwest's reports. He told an NPR Radio reporter, "I had found a lot of inconsistencies with the records,' Boutris says. 'They were different from aircraft to aircraft; it was very hard to determine compliance'" (Goodwyn, 2008). He notes that he complained to his supervisor, Douglas Gawadzinski, but he ignored Boutris' complaints.

In 2006, Boutris took over safety responsibility for the entire 737-700 series aircraft, and when he reviewed Southwest, he found the same recordkeeping problems he had uncovered in 2003. He notified his supervisor and wanted to send a letter of investigation (a very serious matter for any airline, but his supervisor (Gawadzinski) refused. Boutris believes it is because Gawadzinski had a close friendship with Paul Comeau, a former FAA employee who went to work for Southwest as their manager for regulatory compliance. Anything to do with Southwest and the FAA went through these two men, and Boutris believes they routinely covered up inspection irregularities or lack of inspections. Boutris continued to complain, and Southwest asked for him to be removed from their inspections.

Reporter Goodwyn continues, "At first, Gawadzinski refused to remove Boutris. But it wasn't long before the supervisory maintenance inspector told Boutris he was out and that his career was in jeopardy because there had been undisclosed complaints from anonymous Southwest officials" (Goodwyn, 2008). At this point, Douglas Peters, another FAA inspector, was brought in to review Boutris' investigation into Southwest's compliance. Goodwyn notes, "The more he looked into the matter, the more he agreed with Boutris that the flying public was in danger. Peters says the situation defied logic. 'That something so critical... would be not addressed... I can't explain it. it's a mystery'" (Goodwyn). People from Southwest began to contact Gawadzinski directly, instead of going through Peters. Another reporter states, "The whistle-blowers complained repeatedly in memos written in 2007 that their concerns about Southwest were not being taken seriously. The underlying safety concern -- that the airline was unable to keep up with mandatory inspections -- had been raised as early as 2003, one charged" (Levin, 2008). Finally, in March 2007, Southwest admitted to flying 47 737s without completing the problem fuselage inspections, which triggered a Congressional investigation. Even more disturbing, the airline continued to fly the planes even after disclosing they had not been inspected - it took almost a week to ground the planes. The two men testified before Congress in April 2008, and the FAA fined Southwest $10.2 million for the errors. Reporter Levin continues, "Last month, nearly a year after the initial problems were discovered, the FAA levied a $10.2 million fine against Southwest. The vast majority of the fine was imposed because Southwest had certified that it stopped flying the planes as soon as it learned of the missed inspections, FAA officials said" (Levin, 2008). These are the central facts and timeline of the case.

If there are any assumptions to be made about this case, it is that Southwest is arrogant and in bed with the FAA, and felt they had such a close relationship they could cover up safety issues. This assumption stems from statements by the whistleblowers combined with Southwest's attitude about the inspections. It seems as if they thought they were not necessary and they could get away with it. It does not make sense that they would ignore safety issues, if they were truly a socially conscious and ethical airline, in fact, it does not make sense that they would take such chances with people's lives at all, so the assumption is that they simply do not care about their flying public and their own crewmembers.

The major overriding issue in this case is that the FAA and Southwest conspired to cover up inspection information, and they did so at passengers and crewmembers expense. The inspections were mandated because the FAA knew this particular plane had critical safety issues. By not inspecting planes and allowing them to continue flying, they were putting everyone on those planes in jeopardy, and they knew it. That is perhaps the biggest ethical concern of this case, that the company knew they had not completed checks, but continued to fly the planes anyway. One of the whistleblowers was told they did not ground the planes because it would "disrupt" Southwest's service and flight schedule (Goodwyn, 2008).

Any airline has a social responsibility to keep their passengers and crews as safe as possible. Flying is a relatively safe form of travel, but accidents do occur. Maintaining high maintenance and safety standards is simply the right thing to do in the transportation industry; it is the ethical, moral, and socially responsible choice. For an airline to lower those standards, especially because of worries about disruption of service, is simply incomprehensible. It is unethical and pure greed in the worst sense of the word, and it does not even make common sense. For example, the entire airline would be in jeopardy if one of the planes had crashed, and it was found to have been because of a crack that was not detected because of a missed inspection. Indeed, inspections on the aircraft did turn up cracks in some of the planes in question, cracks that had to be repaired before the airplanes took flight again (Wilber, 2008). Thus, Southwest put people in danger, and that is a major ethical violation that has not thoroughly been addressed in the media or by the airline itself. In addition, the FAA was compliant in this ethical transgression, because they allowed it to happen, calling into question the integrity of the organization that is supposed to be primarily concerned with airline safety and maintenance. If the agency doing the oversight is questionable, it brings the entire system into question. This issue should be studied further because it raises so many moral and ethical questions, and it should be studied because it seems, since there seem to be no lasting ramifications for the FAA, that it could happen again, which is even more disturbing.

The stakeholders in this case are the people who fly on Southwest Airlines. Southwest damaged their reputation by letting down their stakeholders, and that is extremely disturbing. They put passenger safety in jeopardy over worries about income and disrupted flights, when their first concern should have been safety and only safety. This calls into question the entire integrity of the company. This is more than just the classical interpretation of right and wrong, it is a moral dilemma that should have had an extremely simple solution. Ground the planes, inspect them as quickly as possible, and get them back in the air. The fact that there was any other solution seen to the problem indicates just how unethical and morally irresponsible Southwest was, and the stakeholders should demand compensation for the threat this decision made to their safety. Southwest simply got lucky that one of the affected planes did not develop more serious issues, and the $10.2 million dollar fine seems quite low in retrospect, considering the damage that could have occurred to people and property had a plane crashed.

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