Airline's parts use probed by FAA

LITTLE ROCK — Southwest Airlines Co. is being investigated by U.S. safety officials over the use of unauthorized parts on at least 42 of its Boeing Co. 737 jets.

The airline's maintenance officials and the Federal Aviation Administration met Wednesday on the issue, said Ashley Rogers, a spokesman for Dallas based Southwest. The parts led Southwest to ground 46 planes, or 8.5 percent of its fleet, on Saturday.

"There was no risk," Rogers said Wednesday. "The public was not at risk at all and the parts on our planes were not faulty."

The inquiry focuses more attention on aircraft issues at Southwest. The airline in March agreed to pay a $7.5 million fine, the largest penalty collected by the FAA, for flying jets without fuselage inspections in 2006 and 2007. In July, a footwide hole opened in the fuselage of a Southwest jet, forcing an emergency landing.

The investigation began Aug. 21, after an FAA inspector monitoring work at a Southwest maintenance subcontractor found irregularities in paperwork for some parts, Lynn Lunsford, an agency spokesman, said. The inspector determined the subcontractor manufactured hinge fittings for part of a system used to move hot air away from flaps on the rear of wings when they are extended.

"The subcontractor manufactured these hinge fittings without using FAA-approved means to do so," Lunsford said. "These are pretty high-wear parts, so they have to be replaced relatively frequently."

The subcontractor, which the FAA and Southwest declined to name, wasn't certified by the agency to make the parts, he said. The FAA and Southwest "worked through the night" on Friday to determine how many aircraft were affected. Southwest grounded the planes starting that night.

Representatives from the FAA, Southwest and Boeing ultimately determined that the parts weren't an immediate safety concern and that the planes could continue to fly for 10 days while "a more permanent solution is reached," Lunsford said.

The FAA may decide that the parts need to be replaced immediately or that they can remain in use until the normal schedule for replacement, he said. It's too early to say whether Southwest might face fines over the components, he said.

Southwest canceled 15 flights Saturday, and its on-time rate dropped to about 68 percent from more than 90 percent normally, Rogers said.

The Wall Street Journal reported the FAA inquiry on its Internet site Tuesday night, citing people familiar with the matter.