[AP] Southwest Airlines grounds dozens of planes

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23594457/


Southwest Airlines grounds dozens of planes

Move comes after carrier admits falling behind required inspection
schedule


DALLAS - Southwest Airlines Co. grounded 43 planes to examine if they were
structurally sound enough to carry passengers after it recently
acknowledged it had missed required inspections of some planes for cracks.

The move announced Wednesday affects about 8 percent of its fleet and
comes as Southwest faces a $10.2 million civil penalty for continuing to
fly almost 50 planes after the airline told regulators that it had missed
required inspections of the planes.

The Federal Aviation Administration, which announced the penalty last
week, has also come under fire for failing to ground the Southwest jets
last year, when agency inspectors learned they had not been inspected for
cracks in the fuselage.

Southwest initially said it grounded 41 planes, but spokeswoman Linda
Rutherford later said 38 planes were taken off the schedule for additional
inspection along with five others that were already in hangars undergoing
routine maintenance.

Rutherford said the airline pulled the planes out of service after getting
clarification from manufacturer Boeing Co. on Tuesday night about the type
of inspection -- visual or magnetic, or a combination of both -- needed
for different areas of the fuselage on certain older planes.

By midday Wednesday, six planes had undergone the 90-minute inspection and
were returned to service, Rutherford said. She said the remaining planes
were expected to be back flying by Wednesday night. A 44th plane covered
by the Boeing instructions had already been retired, she said.

Southwest had cancelled 139 flights by late Wednesday, or about 4 percent
of its scheduled flights, according to Flightstats.com, which tracks
airline operations. Rutherford said some of the cancelations were due to
bad weather in Houston.

The company said it had 520 Boeing 737 jets at the end of last year.
Nearly 200 of them are older models, the Boeing 737-300, that were
supposed to undergo extra inspections for cracks in the fuselage.

Southwest Chief Executive Gary Kelly had said Tuesday he was concerned by
findings from an internal investigation into the missed inspections. He
announced that the Dallas-based company had placed three employees on paid
leave while it investigated the situation.

Acting FAA Administrator Robert A. Sturgell called the events "a twofold
breakdown in the aviation system" -- first, Southwest's failure to
properly inspect its planes; and the FAA's failure to ground the jets as
"at least one FAA inspector looked the other way."

The $10.2 million penalty is the largest the FAA has ever imposed on a
carrier. Southwest has said it will appeal.


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