Posted on 02/25/2015 7:39:57 AM PST by BenLurkin
Southwest Airlines Wednesday grounded 20 percent of its fleet, including the cancellation of six flights at Southland airports, after dozens of planes missed inspections.
The airline made the announcement to ground 128 of its 700 planes or a fifth of its fleet late Tuesday night.
According to a Southwest spokesperson, the airline discovered the missed inspections and immediately notified federal safety regulators to begin checking planes.
Once identified, Southwest immediately and voluntarily removed the affected aircraft from service, the Dallas-based airline said in a statement.
(Excerpt) Read more at losangeles.cbslocal.com ...
Are they ‘missed’ inspections or has our lovely govt upp’ed the bar on inspection schedules ???!
Someone is getting fired.
I have a great idea. Let SW run their planes into the ground without inspections. Then the Feds will come in and shut them down while those affected by the crashes will sue them into obscurity.
How do you miss that many inspections? Aren’t these things part of the routine by now?
Remember what happened to Alaska Airlines flight 261 on 31JAN2000 with the failed jackscrew?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Airlines_Flight_261
It was due to inadequate lubrication and end play checks of the jackscrew that only takes an hour to do. The airline also progessively increased the time between those lube and checks.
SW, like any other airline, knows what needs to be done and when for aircraft maintenance. You think some just “forgot”? I don’t think so. They were slacking off trying to save money for the airline.
The inspectors need to clamp down a little harder on SW to ensure nobody “forgets” what needs to done.
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