The FAA spent the past week answering for a regional supervisor's decision to allow Southwest Airlines to keep flying jets that needed crucial safety inspections. Within the past decade, the FAA has taken a partnership approach to regulation, relying on the airlines to self-disclose safety risks and de-emphasizes hands-on inspections. In North Texas, for instance, inspectors chafed four years ago when the FAA decided to settle about 60 regulatory violations with American Airlines for $2.5 million, about $5 million less than the book value of the penalties. More recently, FAA inspectors overseeing Southwest and Northwest airlines said they were removed from their jobs after trying to investigate serious maintenance problems at the carriers, allegations mostly supported by independent investigators. The FAA's maintenance oversight was also an issue in 2006, when a small airliner crashed into a shipping channel near Miami, killing 20. The operator, Chalk's Ocean Airways, repeatedly fixed a fuel leak but missed the structural weakness that caused a wing to fall off. After the crash, the NTSB recommended the FAA verify that maintenance programs of commercial airlines include criteria to identify systemic problems. Ron Ricks, a Southwest EVP, said the airline's recent lapses shouldn't be used to indict the oversight system. The newer partnership approach has allowed airlines and the FAA to focus on fixing problems instead of assigning blame, he said. Under the old system, airlines were less willing to admit problems because they knew they would be punished.