The Federal Aviation Administration said Thursday it will seek a record $10.2 million fine against Southwest Airlines for flying 46 jets without doing required fuselage inspections.
The Dallas-based airline, which carries more than 80 percent of the passengers who move through Houston's Hobby Airport, found cracks on six of those planes once the overdue inspections were conducted, the FAA said. Southwest understood the FAA considered the matter closed after the problems were addressed last year, the company said. It also said it would challenge the fine. The agency said it initiated a formal action on Thursday to collect the civil penalty. The FAA alleged that between June 18, 2006, and March 14, 2007, Southwest operated more than 59,000 flights without complying with a 2004 order requiring repetitive inspections of fuselage areas to detect fatigue cracking.
Further, the FAA charged that the airline flew nearly 1,500 more flights using the same planes in March 2007, even after it determined that it had not done the necessary inspections.
"The FAA is taking action against Southwest Airlines for a failing to follow the rules that are designed to protect passengers and crew," Nicholas Sabatini, the FAA's associate administrator for aviation safety, said in a prepared statement.
The fine is the largest levied against an air carrier, FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said. Southwest said in a prepared statement that the inspections "were one of many routine, redundant, and overlapping inspections of a very small percentage of our fleet having to do with small skin cracks." The carrier also noted that it was the one that discovered the missing inspections and informed the FAA, then "promptly" completed them in March 2007. "The FAA approved our actions and considered the matter closed as of April 2007," the carrier said.
