Southwest Airlines’ Kelleher and Kelly to Testify Before Congressional Hearing

This Thursday, the House Transportation Committee holds hearings into airline safety. It promises to be embarrassing for both Southwest Airlines and the FAA.

According to the agenda (for a complete copy, click on MORE below), Southwest Executive Chairman Herb Kelleher and CEO Gary Kelly will testify.

So will two Dallas-based FAA inspectors who “blew the whistle” on alleged safety oversights that led to dozens of planes being grounded for re-inspections.

It’ll be a big story, and I’ll be there in Washington to cover it. I plan to “blog” during the day with updates on what is going on.

Killing Fields Survivor Dies

It is with great sadness that I read today of the death of Dith Pran at the age of 65. He was nothing short of a hero, and his story serves as an inspiration to journalists everywhere.

Those who have seen the movie The Killing Fields know why.  He was the interpreter for Sydney Schanberg, The New York Times reporter who documented America’s disastrous war in Cambodia in the 1970s and ultimately the murderous rampage of the Khmer Rouge, led by dictator Pol Pot, who killed a third of the country’s population.

They say truth is the first casualty of war, and Pran and Schanberg did their best under almost impossible circumstances to get the truth out — both before the American withdrawal and after.  Pran’s family escaped, but he stayed behind to work with Schanberg.

After the Khmer Rouge cemented their power, Schanberg was forced out but Pran could not leave. He survived on a teaspoon of rice a day, working as an uneducated peasant, so as not to give away his true identity, which would have meant certain death.

He escaped a few years later, was reunited with his family in the United States, and became an American citizen. The Times hired him as a staff photographer. But he never stopped talking about the genocide in his native land.  He wanted the world to know about the atrocities so that history would never forget.

Even in the last weeks of his life, in the hospital where he was being treated for pancreatic cancer, he urged others to take up his cause.

“If they can do that for me,” he said, “my spirit will be happy.”

A Crazy Driver, And a Robber Caught Yellow-Handed

Not to prejudge anyone before their time in court, not to label anyone, but I always love “stupid criminal” stories… And today, I had a choice of two!

Fort Worth Police say the guy in the mugshot above, Bradley McClure, 30, barrelled between two cars stopped at a red light on Henderson Street near downtown, injuring three people,  and kept on going. Right in front of a police car!

The cop gave chase. The guy drove into a pedestrian tunnel, where he was arrested. Police say he was “angry,” but it’s not clear what he was upset about.

Case two: A robber outside a cell phone store on West Berry was a little too obvious!

Workers noticed him putting on big yellow cleaning gloves before entering the store.  They called 911, and cops were there by the time he walked out with the cash. He took off running, dropping his gun and loot.  Police caught him a block or two later.

Cops 2, bad guys 0.

By the way, I ended up doing the story on the hit-and-run driver. But it’s always good to have a choice!

A Woman Police Chief

Fort Worth Police Chief Pat Kneblick made a splash in the news recently when she was appointed to lead the 1,439-officer department in North Texas’ second-largest city.  Why? Because she’s a she, one of only a few big-city women police chiefs in the country.

Her appointment is “interim” while city leaders conduct a “nationwide search.” It’s a big country, and there are no doubt many qualified candidates out there. Will she get the permanent gig?

It’s the old argument: Does the city go with new blood? Or a known entity who already knows the department from the inside?

In an interesting move, she already promoted someone else to take her old job as deputy chief, leading to an awkward situation if she’s not named permanent chief. Either she doesn’t have a job to go back to, or the deputy chief she just appointed bumps back to captain.

I first met Chief Kneblick back in 1994 when I started work at NBC 5.  The gang wars were raging that summer. It got so bad, it attracted national publicity. In a radio broadcast from jail, one gang leader called for a “truce.” She was the department’s spokeswoman, and I ran into her frequently at crime scenes. My impression of her then was that she was a hard worker and a straight shooter, who often worked overtime whenever the “news” happened. (The shootings seemed to take place every night.)

Later, she shot up the ranks to lead the department’s patrol division, among other things.

Among the troops, her appointment to interim chief is not universally applauded.

Dallas, Is There a Problem?

It’s always interesting to watch how a big company responds to a crisis.

Last week, when the FAA slammed Southwest Airlines with a $10.2 million fine for safety violations, Southwest circled the wagons. Deny, deny, deny. Defend, defend, defend. There was no hint that there might actually be a problem.

The PR staff declared the airline never had flown unsafe planes, and CEO Gary Kelly gave interviews calling the FAA fine “unprecedented” and “unfair.”

Suddenly, on Tuesday, everything changed. CEO Kelly was “concerned” after getting preliminary reports of an internal investigation. Three employees were suspended.

Then, today, Southwest announced it had grounded 41 planes for repairs. But the airline still insists it has operated safely.

What’s going on? How serious is it?

The FAA obviously believes it to be quite serious, or it wouldn’t have fined the airline a record $10.2 million or sent a team of auditors to pour over Southwest’s maintenance records. Other experts we’ve talked to say what has come to light is serious stuff.

Surprising, for an airline that has a stellar safety record. Not a single passenger of flight crew member ever killed in a crash.

And consider this: I called a director of Southwest’s mechanics’ union, figuring he might jump at the chance to criticize the airline. After all, the union is fighting SWA’s plans to possibly “outsource” some maintenance to El Salvador.

But Stephen MacFarlane, assistant national director of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association, couldn’t have been more supportive of Southwest. He says this whole matter is getting “an inordinate amount of attention.”

“This is a great company. They have a terrific safety record,” MacFarlane said. “I would ask people to be calm. Let’s find out the facts.” 

The more we learn, it certainly appears Southwest has some safety issues that need to be addressed.  Are they just “paperwork” issues, or has the airline really cut corners and flown unsafe planes? Or is the truth somewhere in the middle?

Like anything, the answer probably depends who you ask.  With congressional hearings set for April 3rd, let’s hope the truth comes out. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Southwest Grounds 41 Planes

Breaking news from Southwest Airlines: They are grounding 41 planes. The jets are being taken immediately to “the closest maintenance facility,” said Southwest spokeswoman Christi Day.

She would not elaborate on what led to the action, except to say it comes amid safety concerns.

The groundings have resulted in “a few cancellations,” she said, but “nothing significant.”

“We’ve been able to substitute and swap aircraft,” Day said. She added that it helps that today is Wednesday, a low travel day.

Southwest Suspends 3

A surprise twist today in what is developing into a scandal over safety issues at Southwest Airlines… Southwest announced it has suspended three employees.

I just finished an interview with Ginger Hardage, Senior Vice President for Corporate Communications. She won’t identify the three employees who have been removed from their positions. But she says the move came amid an “internal investigation” after the FAA provided the airline with some specific allegations last week.

She says Southwest CEO Gary Kelly is “concerned” over findings of the airline’s own preliminary investigation, but she would not elaborate.

She says the airline continues to stand by its safety record, and wants to make a “safe” airline “safer.”

I’m still working the story and hope to have more details tonight at 10 on NBC 5.

Southwest Part II: A Question of Timing

Amid allegations it knowingly flew unsafe planes with potential cracks in the fuselage, Southwest Airlines has defended itself by saying it learned of the problem itself, voluntarily reported it to the FAA, and quickly fixed the planes with the FAA’s approval.

Well, not exactly, according to documents we obtained from two whistleblower FAA inspectors.

Consider the following timeline:

January 2007: FAA inspector Bobby Boutris is assigned to review “airframes and systems” on Southwest’s fleet of Boeing 737’s. When Southwest officials learn of his planned inspection, Boutris says the airline protested.  Obviously there was no love lost between him and the airline. He accused Southwest at the time of trying to “hand pick” the inspector. Long story short, he wins the skirmish and is allowed to continue his work.

March 15, 2007:Boutris goes to Southwest to begin reviewing records. The same day, Southwest executives call the FAA’s chief inspector and inform him they had discovered a big problem the day before. It turned out Southwest had neglected to inspect 47 planes for possible cracks. The FAA now says the planes should have been grounded immediately. The airline continued flying with paying passengers (more than a thousand flights) for another 8 days.

Southwest may have voluntarily reported it, the documents show, but only with inspector Boutris breathing down their necks.

The same inspector had apparently been a thorn in Southwest’s side for some time. In his whistleblower statement, he says he had been raising safety concerns about Southwest for about three years.

You would think Boutris would deserve an award for discovering the serious safety problem, or at least pushing Southwest to discover it. After all, the same problem caused the roof to rip off an Aloha Airlines jet in 1988, killing one flight attendant. That’s what led to the FAA’s “Airworthiness Directive.”

But what did Boutris get?

Safety, Southwest Airlines, and the FAA

We’ve already heard startling allegations about Southwest Airlines flying planes with known safety issues. Now, questions about what took the FAA so long to issue a record $10 million fine and whether agency managers, in effect, allowed the airline to do it.

Tonight we broke the story, with details from two FAA inspectors. They claim their agency allowed Southwest Airlines to ignore safety mandates and fly thousands of flights on planes that needed urgent inspections into small cracks in their fuselage. It’s a troubling story.

The airline denies ever flying unsafe planes, but the inspectors (certified government whistleblowers) paint a scary picture of the safety threat, and of inaction by the FAA.

The duo will likely be star witnesses in hearings to be held by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Among other things, the hearings will probably delve into the alleged cozy relationship between Southwest and several FAA managers whose job it was to oversee safety inspections of the airline. At least two of them were removed from their positions after an internal FAA investigation, the whistleblowers’ documents reveal.

As I reported tonight, the documents also reveal Southwest hired an FAA inspector, who quit work at the agency one day and started working for the airline the next. His new job at Southwest: To deal with his old buddies at the FAA.

The whopping FAA fine came Thursday. Why now? It might have something to do with the timing of the congressional hearings.

Top FAA administrators knew they had to “see the light or feel the heat,” said Rep. James Oberstar, chairman of the House committee which has launched a full investigation into all this.

The hearings begin April 3rd. (They were supposed to start earlier but Chairman Oberstar needs hip surgery.) Should be interesting.

If you don’t like the weather…

You know that old saying, “If you don’t like the weather in North Texas, just stick around a day or two, it’ll change!”

Well, I can’t think of any time that’s been more true than in the last week.

Snow one day. Temperatures in the 70’s the next. Snow the next day. Warm the next.

As I write this, photographer C.J. Johnson and I are heading from Weatherford to Denton by way of Springtown to cover the winter storm. Weatherford looks like a picture postcard, with a layer of white covering the historic courthouse and big flakes still falling from the sky.

We have seen several cars involved in accidents, so it’s serious stuff. But most people like a good snow. A nice day to stay inside next to the fireplace. The kids can build a snowman or have a snowball fight and hope for no school tomorrow!

And if you don’t like it, well, stick around a day or two!