
Lax FAA oversight let Southwest Airlines put millions of passengers at risk - bookofjoe
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/lax-faa-oversight-allowed-southwest-to-put-millions-of-passengers-at-risk-ig-says/2020/02/11/a3fdb714-4d22-11ea-b721-9f4cdc90bc1c_story.html
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PaulHoule
Over a long period of time, Southwest had been involved in a number of crazy
accidents on the west coast, especially

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines_Flight_1455](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines_Flight_1455)

which skidded off the end of the runway and almost hit a gas station. It could
have been a scene out of a Hollywood movie right in Burbank, CA.

They shut down the gas station and installed this:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineered_materials_arrestor_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineered_materials_arrestor_system)

funny enough the first person to use that was baseball player and steroid
junkie Alex Rodriguez who had some trouble landing his private plane.

Note the high accident count w/ Southwest is largely because Southwest is a
big airline and has so many flights. Southwest used to be a David but now it
is just another Goliath.

~~~
mi100hael
lol "steroid junkie."

Somewhat off-topic but still HN-relevant I think: PEDs aren't magic (still
requires an absolutely massive amount of work to realize the benefits) and
while I have no numbers to back it up, I'd wager usage is prevalent in most
professional competitions. For pros, it's not just a game. It's a livelihood
and I can't exactly fault them for doing what it takes to reach the top. I'm
certainly not surprised or judgemental when they do.

~~~
PaulHoule
You are right about that.

Steroids are not "an easy way out", but rather a way for serious athletes to
achieve superhuman performance.

Every so often there is some suggestion that a new generation of muscle-
building drugs might work without exercise but I find it hard to believe
because I'm sure the stimulation of using your muscle provides cues to the
cells how to grow to be effective and that if you produced hypertrophy some
other way you'd get different results.

------
afandian
I'm flying Southwest later this month. Being in the UK, I'm geoblocked from
this article. Should I be worried?

~~~
kayfox
The two main complaints are:

1\. Inaccurate weight and balance calculations (seems to be passenger seating
since its reported to not be baggage weight and balance).

2\. 88 aircraft with non-conforming repairs, the airline has since replaced
the repairs with conforming repairs.

I'm not surprised on the first issue, since Southwest has to perform the
weight and balance checking in a matter of minutes between all the passengers
getting on board and pushback, because of the open seating.

The FAA will be implementing more stringent oversight between now and
September 30th.

~~~
dave5104
> Southwest has to perform the weight and balance checking in a matter of
> minutes between all the passengers getting on board and pushback, because of
> the open seating.

Why wouldn't this be an issue for other airlines as well? United doesn't ask
for a passenger's weight in advance to pre-calculate based on their assigned
seat.

~~~
ranrotx
I’ve been on Southwest flights so sparsely full (maybe 40 people on a plane
with capacity for 120) where the flight attendants have to repeatedly tell
people to “spread out for weight and balance.” That’s about as scientific as
their calculation got.

~~~
dylan604
Which is drastically different from my experience from flying a different
carrier with a very empty plane. The original seat assignments had all of the
passengers bunched together and the flight attendants denied anyone's request
to move to empty rows until the plane reached altitude. They finally explained
that the plane's load master stated that's where the weight needed to be
during take-off/landing. Once they explained that, everyone complied without
any further complaints.

~~~
bookofjoe
I wonder if everyone moved back to their assigned seats before landing. Did
they?

~~~
dylan604
Yes, when they made the announcement about making the descent on approach,
they asked everyone to move back to the seats they were in on take off while
return your tray and seat to their upright position

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neonate
[https://archive.md/SNyR4](https://archive.md/SNyR4)

------
generalpass
Yet, despite various issues over many decades, the airline has zero fatal
events where a fatal event is defined as a death of a passenger or crew member
as a result of some sort of accident.

~~~
tspike
I'm confused by this comment. What about [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-
canada-43803340](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43803340) ?

~~~
mindcrime
That's recent enough that it's very possible the poster you are replying to
didn't know about it, or just forgot. But certainly up until 2018, it was a
well known bit of "received knowledge" that Southwest had never had a
passenger fatality. Until the incident mentioned above, the only fatality
they'd been involved with had been when a plane skidded off an icy runway (at
Midway, I think) and hit a car sitting a stoplight, and killed a passenger in
the car.

In any case, in terms of actual outcomes, Southwest has had a pretty good
track record over the lifetime of their airline.

~~~
generalpass
I was going by AirSafe reporting 0.00 for their FLE. However, due to the size
of SouthWest, a single fatality throughout the history of the company probably
does not change this number from zero.

[http://www.airsafe.com/airline.htm](http://www.airsafe.com/airline.htm)

However, they may not have updated their site beyond the incident summary
because Southwest is still listed as an airline with zero passenger
fatalities.

[http://www.airsafe.com/airline.htm](http://www.airsafe.com/airline.htm)

~~~
geoelectric
Weirdly, that page is listed as updated in 2019. Someone must have missed the
SW one.

The Southwest page does mention the 2018 incident and fatality, and was
updated the day of the incident in fact. However, the incident isn't
"numbered" as a fatal event--instead it has a UL bullet instead of an OL
number, which looks like a mistake.

On one hand, AFAIK the event wasn't SW's fault at all--they'd performed
maintenance on the engine to standards. The fan blades failed due to a
material fatigue issue, and happened to hit the engine cowl at its weakest
spot and detached it.

But I thought Airsafe still would've counted that as related to the operation
of the plane, though, and the FLE for that flight would be like 0.007 (1/143)
and still round up to 0.01. Since only flights with a fatality at all count
for their calculation that'd be an overall FLE of the same.

~~~
mindcrime
Yeah, I would think that it would still "count against" SW in that regard,
even though it wasn't a "plane crash" or whatever.

------
mnm1
Ah yes, the "make me" culture. As in, make me do it or get the fuck out. It's
as prevalent in corporate America as it is in our government. The problem is,
there is no one there to enforce the laws and regulations. Corporations should
be subject to the government and the government subject to its own command
structure and hierarchy. They are not. The result? The government has given up
its monopoly on power. Now you can die in a plane and nothing will happen to
your murderer (see 737 max). Now you can commit crimes as a government
employee without fear of punishment or retaliation. No one is safe. Without
consequences for bad actions, we might as well still be out in the jungle,
fearing for our lives daily. In fact, this is the reality for tens of millions
of Americans. Money can buy some protections, but most are out of reach of
ordinary citizens. I mean who can force Southeast to comply with standards if
the FAA and the entire government structure behind it going up to the
president can't do it? I think it's safe to say we do not and likely never did
live in a country that's ruled by law.

