[millionmiler]

Question:
Has anyone else noticed a general deterioration of Southwest's aircraft, including:

• oil and hydraulic fluid stains along the trailing sides of the wings and engines?
• peeling paint around the leading edges of the aircraft including near doors?
• rutted carpet, torn seats, etc. on the inside?
• frequent aircraft delays due to mechanical issues?

[Gromit801]

Their aircraft scare the hell out of me. I'm an ex-USAF aircraft maintenance supervisor, and have flown SWA once. Once is enough. That they've not had a crash, YET, is pure dumb luck.

[jimworcs]

Yeah, pure dumb LUCK. In the last 25 years, Southwest has had 17.87 million flights and not one fatal accident. In the equivalent period, American has had 6 fatal accidents, United has also had 6, Delta has had 3. They are so unlucky and Southwest are just so lucky it is unbelieveable.

If you don't like Southwest or their business model Gromit, just say so (in fact, you frequently do). But it is ridiculous to try to make the argument on safety grounds. They are probably one of the safest airlines in the world.

[Jetliner]

Southwest does beat the hell out of their aircraft so to speak, and they have had some issues make the news for maintenance, however, the things you list are not necessarily a sign of bad maintenance.

First is the fluid stains (oil and hydraulic fluid). What you are seeing might be oil, but not hydraulic fluid. Jet engines are very leaky with oil. I remember seeing British Airways come in (a 777) and the mechanics having to dump a couple quarts of oil in each engine. But there's something else you are not thinking of - de-icing fluid. It will also strip the paint over time. So even in summer, you can see evidence of it. However, I have never noticed any unusual amounts of this on Southwest, and I have flown them frequently.

The peeling paint is another thing that's very normal on any forward facing surface of the aircraft.

The interior items are simply due to the fact that they turn lots of flights, and hence more movement on the carpets and more getting up and down on the seats.

What always did strike me as odd was the number of doubler plates on their aircraft. Doubler plates are essentially a patch in the skin. I have worked with planes that were 30+ years old that didn't have 1/4 of the doubler plates their newer aircraft have. And these are in places that the ramp equipment can't reach. And it's funny this comes up - I was at the airport a couple weeks ago dropping someone off, and saw one of their aircraft sitting there at the gate. I was standing at the window and could see what I would call a doubler strip - or in this case two of them. On the top of the aircraft is the fuselage crown, which is the metal panels on the top. Where they met the metal along the side, there was a patch on both sides running almost the full length of the aircraft. This was in addition to the usual other double plates.

This is concerning to me because their biggest maintenance finding from the FAA (which was just a couple years ago) was they were skipping their metal fatigue inspections on many of their aircraft.

[jimworcs]

I was standing at the window and could see what I would call a doubler strip - or in this case two of them. On the top of the aircraft is the fuselage crown, which is the metal panels on the top. Where they met the metal along the side, there was a patch on both sides running almost the full length of the aircraft. This was in addition to the usual other double plates.

This is concerning to me because their biggest maintenance finding from the FAA (which was just a couple years ago) was they were skipping their metal fatigue inspections on many of their aircraft.

Jetliner, you have posted two posts in the last 24 hours which are very coherant, logical explanations of why things which may appear to be something to be of concern, may in fact be routine. The San Diego landing post and this one. However, I am puzzled by the logical of the quote above. If there are more "doubler plates" on Southwest than other airlines, that would seem to suggest that Southwest are inspecting their aircraft for fatigue and addressing the problem with doubler plates. If they were continuing to skip their metal fatigue inspections, surely logically you would expect LESS doubler plates.

The reason you may see more signs of wear and tear on Southwest than other airlines may have more to do with their fleet renewal policy than safety. If Southwest work their aircraft hard, (which they do) and keep them rather than replace them and sell their older aircraft on the second hard market, then you will see more older, repaired aircraft at Southwest than some of the legacy airlines. This is NOT a safety issue, and I think it is irresponsible to suggest that it is.

[Jetliner]

You are missing my point. Yes, in the cases where there are doubler plates then it does suggest they are doing the inspections, at least on those aircraft. But keep in mind too that a doubler plate is also used if the skin of the plane gets punctured. So what about the ones that got skipped out on inspections that may need these? Are there other places that need plates are did not get them? The next question is, are they caught up on the inspections?

They had one make an emergency landing a few months ago where a small section of skin peeled open by the tail. Was that due to a missed inspection?

The bigger picture in this is that they beat their planes to that point. What's getting missed?

There's an even bigger picture at play here. The reason the inspections got skipped was because the FAA inspector was overlooking them. Turns out the Southwest head of maintenance was his brother-in-law. In more recent months it was found that there was a wing part being used that was not FAA approved. It's a heat shield for the exhaust above the back of the engine. I still don't get how a company can make an airplane part that is not FAA approved, but it happened. Now let's start putting the pieces together.

Given the time frames, these parts had to have been approved for use by the former head of maintenance. (Yes he and his bro in law at the FAA got fired from their jobs after the inspections, or lack of). More than likely he was trying to save the company money and in turn making himself look good to those higher up. You have to now ask yourself, what else did he have in place that has not been discovered yet?

[jimworcs]

Are you kidding me? The FAA were all over them! I would hazard a guess that Southwest has more rigorous compliance checks now than any other.

I still think it is very short sighted to "compete on safety". The whole industry is dependent on the public perception that the industry is safety first.

Southwest has a particularly enviable safety record. Many of the majors have had FAA compliance problems, including just recently AA.

It is foolish to undermine people's confidence in the safety culture of the industry and there is scant evidence of any systematic problem within the industry in the Western World and the statistics support this. Even your argument supports this, citing instead the actions of individuals rather than corporate or regulator cultures being the root cause.

[Gromit801]

The FAA weren't "all over them" until the maintenance problems were brought to light. The horse was far out of the barn by then.

What's going to be your excuse for SWA when they do finally make a smoking hole in the ground? Oh, they've only had one fatal crash?

[jimworcs]

That is what I said.. the FAA was all over them after the problems came to light. Gromit, if they make a smoking hole in the ground, it will be 5 less smoking holes in the ground than United and AA and 2 less than Delta. On what basis can you think that the mainline airlines are "safer"?

[Jetliner]

Jim - the FAA may have been all over them, but the big question is did they complete those inspections yet? And even if they did, you still have to ask what else has not been found (problems overall, not just metal.) Again, look at the unauthorized parts that were used. Look at the hole that ripped open.

There's one other thing that makes me wonder. A few months ago the had a plane make an emergency landing in Tampa. It was flying Orlando to Denver and turned around, reporting smoke from a lavatory. They evacuated the aircraft (using the slides). Now, here's where things get hazy. The airport fire department confirmed smoke in the cabin, but no fire. Southwest corporate stated in it's news releases (several times) that there was NO smoke in the cabin.

I got a little insider word on this one that some of the passengers said their eyes were burning. This tells me it's not smoke, but vaporized hydraulic fluid. Probably from the APU (auxiliary power unit - gives electric, air conditioning, and compressed air to stat the engines). It would have been shut down at that point, but still parts would be hot as hell. And it sits behind the lavatories on a 737. Hmmm. Here's a further Hmmm - an emergency landing that requires a fire department response, and en evacuation of passengers, and it never gets reported to the NTSB. Any incident like this is reportable, and can be seen here: http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/query.asp

Your numbers are also very flawed. Wherever you got that figure from for the number of flights in the last 25 years, why don't you look up the number of flights for Untied, Delta and American. Also you can scratch 2 each for American and Untied as those were terrorist acts on 9/11, so not exactly due to some wrong doing on the part of the airlines. I know that there were lawsuits and such, however they were following all of the security procedures set forth by the government at the time.

[jimworcs]

What exactly are you implying about the Orlando incident?

That Southwest are aware of a potentially dangerous APU and have decided to ignore it, not report the incident and fly a potentially unsafe aircraft and risk a crash?

The problem with these conspiracy theories are they would require the collusion of thousands of aircraft engineers, airline staff and management.

However you calculate the statistics on hull losses, passenger mortality or number of reportable accidents, I am afraid that Southwest comes out top. This is not a freak anomoly. Southwest is one of the largest carriers in the world in terms of KPM, total flights and passenger numbers.

Make no mistake. I am not saying that the legacy carriers are unsafe. You will not find that in any of my arguments against them. I am saying that the US airline industry is incredibly safe. That needs to be safeguarded, but at this point, there is no particular cause for serious concern.

I am saying that it is irresponsible and inaccurate to suggest that Southwest are unsafe, notwithstanding the incidents you cite. It is certainly foolhardy to attempt to compare their safety standards with the legacies because the statistics simply do not stack up to support it. ALL the airlines have had compliance issues at some time.