FAA May Fine Southwest Over Missed Safety Checks

According to a Wall Street Journal report, federal aviation regulators are seeking a penalty of at least $3 million from Southwest Airlines Co. for failing to properly inspect nearly four dozen older planes for potentially hazardous structural cracks, according to people familiar with the details. The penalty is expected to be the largest imposed against any passenger carrier in about two decades. Southwest will be able to appeal any penalty the FAA may propose. The Department of Transportation and a congressional committee are examining why the Federal Aviation Administration didn't ground the planes temporarily last March after learning of the missed inspections. The case focuses on the carrier's failure to perform certain inspections on its older-version Boeing 737-300s as required. Calling it an inadvertent internal-maintenance misstep, the airline initially believed as many as 100 planes out of a fleet of more than 190 of those models were affected, according to one person familiar with details. The inspections are part of an FAA 2004 aging-aircraft safety directive.
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