News unnoticed in flap over aircraft inspections

There was plenty of news about the Federal Aviation Administration’s shortcomings last week, all focused on the failure of the agency to enforce its own aircraft inspection requirements -- mostly at Southwest Airlines due to an improperly cozy relationship between the FAA’s local manager and maintenance executives at the airline. At congressional hearings last week, Southwest’s top executives apologized as several FAA aircraft inspectors testified they had repeatedly warned their superiors that Southwest’s safety inspections had fallen way behind – only to be intimidated and threatened by their FAA bosses as a result. Lawmakers on the panel said there was evidence of systemic failure in FAA’s safety oversight of airlines.

But one revealing piece of FAA news went unnoticed by the major media – a brief announcement by the agency and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association that they had signed a new agreement creating a “non-punitive environment for the open reporting of safety of flight concerns by employees of the FAA.” The carefully-worded announcement quoted FAA chief Robert Sturgell as saying that air traffic controllers “will now be able to volunteer information that will help us define conditions or circumstances that could lead to safety issues.” The head of NATCA said the pact gives controllers “protection from discipline when our members identify errors and other performance-related issues affecting system safety.” The clear implication: Before this agreement, air traffic controllers who saw problems in the control tower knew enough to keep their mouths shut or face retribution from the FAA, even though passenger safety could be imperiled.