Has complacency become a danger to air safety?
A historic record — more than nine years without a single fatality on a U.S. airline — was shattered in a split second this week by an engine that exploded midair on a Southwest Airlines flight, spewing shrapnel through a window and killing one passenger.
That accident, and a troubling 60 Minutes report Sunday citing an unusual spate of midair incidents on Allegiant Air, raise a troubling question: Has complacency become a danger to air safety?
Years without fatalities and a new generation of safer jetliners might have lulled the industry and its regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration, into a false sense of security.
Airline arrogance and lax oversight have had disastrous consequences in the past.
In 1996, a ValuJet plane plunged into the Florida Everglades, killing 110 people and revealing a virtual collapse of safety regulation. (One of ValuJet’s founders and officers is now the CEO of Allegiant.) And in 2000, an Alaska Airlines crash that killed 88 revealed that the FAA had “failed miserably” in policing the airline.
No one — not airlines nor the FAA — wants to go there again. Both should be wary of signs that burst into sight this week.
Take Tuesday’s Southwest incident, which could have been far worse if not for the pilot’s heroic efforts to land the plane safely. “Engine failures like this should not occur, obviously,” said Robert Sumwalt, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board.
But they have occurred, not once but twice on 737s flown by Southwest, despite the airline’s otherwise impeccable safety record.
In August 2016, an engine exploded in midair when a fan blade snapped, sending debris into the plane’s outer skin, leaving a gash in the fuselage. No- body was hurt. The National Transportation Safety Board found signs of “metal fatigue” on the blade, which should have spurred more meticulous inspections.
It didn’t, despite a recommendation from the engine’s maker that airlines using certain of these CFM56 engines conduct ultrasonic inspections to look for cracks. Last August, the FAA proposed similar inspections but never finalized its directive. Until now.
It should not have taken nearly two years and a death for the FAA to act.
Concerns about complacency were compounded by the 60 Minutes report that Allegiant — a profitable, fastgrowing low-cost carrier — had “an alarming number of aborted takeoffs, cabin pressure loss, emergency descents and unscheduled landings” over a 22-month period ending last October.
Three Democratic senators are demanding answers from the FAA about its safety oversight, with one calling for an investigation of its handling of Allegiant.
As USC aviation safety expert Michael Barr pointed out: “The lack of an accident is not an indicator of how safe an airline is.”