| FAA Launches Audit of Southwest Airlines After Close Calls -- 2nd Update |
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| Dow Jones Newswires July 23, 2024 03:46:00 PM ET
U.S. air-safety regulators are launching a broad review of Southwest Airlines after a string of recent close calls and other incidents.
The Dallas-based airline has had a number of potential safety incidents in recent months, including flights that descended to low altitudes too early and a flight that took off from a closed runway.
Southwest acknowledged the Federal Aviation Administration's audit and said it has been working closely with the agency in reviewing recent episodes. The airline said it had already formed a team of experts and leaders from the airline, its unions and the FAA to take a close look at its safety system.
"This group is tasked with performing an in-depth, data-driven analysis to identify any opportunities for improvement. Nothing is more important to Southwest than the safety of our customers and employees," the airline said.
The FAA said it has increased oversight of Southwest to ensure it is complying with federal safety regulations, and that the timeline of the review will be driven by safety.
Southwest's most recent incident came earlier this month: A July 14 flight descended to as low as 150 feet over Florida'sTampa Bay -- miles from the runway, according to data from Flightradar24. An air-traffic controller alerted the pilots and they discontinued their planned approach to Tampa and diverted to Fort Lauderdale.
The FAA has opened investigations into individual instances, but the audit will go further, assessing Southwest's operations more broadly.
The audit is expected to be completed within three months, according to a government official and a person briefed on the matter. It is expected to focus on pilot training, various types of approaches for landing, and maintenance procedures related to opening and removing engine covers and panels, they said.
The review will also delve into the local FAA office that oversees Southwest, the government official said, and as part of its ramped-up scrutiny, the FAA is expected to assign a safety issue analysis team to examine Southwest's practices over a longer period.
Southwest's pilots union told members Tuesday that the FAA's Safety Analysis and Promotion Division intends to perform an in-depth examination of the airline's operations, covering everything from manuals to training and line operations.
"Expect increased scrutiny on ground events and safety, training on abnormals, turbulence safety, and aircraft maintenance," the union said in a message to Southwest pilots Tuesday.
United Airlines faced similar federal scrutiny earlier this year after its own operational mishaps. In March, one of the airline's 25-year-old jets was found to be missing a panel after landing, and another plane lost a wheel during takeoff in a separate incident that month.
At Southwest, a flight in June took off from a closed runway in Portland, Maine, after pilots overlooked a notice about the runway's status, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. Another flight that month descended to a very low altitude several miles away from an airport in Oklahoma City.
In April, a Southwest flight plunged within about 400 feet of the ocean near Hawaii in a mishap while the pilots attempted to redo a landing in bad weather. Another flight in March veered off course during an attempted landing in poor conditions and came within 800 feet of the air-traffic control tower at LaGuardia Airport in New York. There have been two Southwest flights that lost engine covers that were left unlatched.
Southwest's vice president of flight operations, Lee Kinnebrew, in May wrote to employees that the airline was examining whether there was a disconnect between its procedures, training and performance. He added that the airline was conducting focus groups in some bases to determine whether there were ways to improve and guard against complacency and distractions.
"We have more Captains and First Officers in new seats than ever before. We're adapting to an increasingly complex network with new tools and systems," Kinnebrew wrote.
Write to Alison Sider at alison.sider@wsj.com and Andrew Tangel at andrew.tangel@wsj.com
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