Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly conceded that there "was clearly a mistake with our regulatory compliance" when the carrier operated 46 737 Classics for nine days in March 2007 after it had disclosed to US FAA that the aircraft were in noncompliance with an agency airworthiness directive but insisted that "safety of flight" was not compromised. "It's a black eye, but my commitment to you is that we're going to take this constructively and move forward," Kelly testified before the House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee yesterday. "We should not have flown those aircraft based on what we know today." Added Chairman Herb Kelleher: "I apologize to this committee. We realize those planes shouldn't have flown." But he emphasized that the aircraft had been "inspected over and over and over" and only a "small part" of fuselage skin was missed during those checks. "I don't want anyone on this committee to get the impression that Southwest was just rumbling through the sky without having inspections," he said. The SWA executives' comments came toward the end of a 9-hr. Congressional hearing in which several FAA inspectors, Dept. of Transportation Inspector General Calvin Scovel and Committee Chairman James Oberstar (D-Minn.) alleged pervasive dysfunction in the FAA field office that oversees SWA, including an inappropriately "cozy" relationship between regulators and the airline (ATWOnline, April 2). Lawmakers heard explosive testimony from FAA inspectors who said they repeatedly highlighted concerns over SWA's compliance with ADs but were shunned by supervisors who "looked the other way." The inspectors said attempts to report wrongdoing in the FAA's SWA Certificate Management Office in Dallas led to harassment and threats of termination from supervisors. Douglas Gawadzinski, then FAA's supervisory principal maintenance inspector for SWA, told the airline that it could continue operating the 46 aircraft in March 2007 even after the LCC disclosed noncompliance related to fuselage skin inspections. FAA Associate Administrator-Aviation Safety Nicholas Sabatini told the House panel that Gawadzinski's actions were "truly disturbing" and said he had been "removed from any safety duties. . . It's absolutely Safety 101: You don't let noncompliant aircraft fly." While Gawadzinski is still employed by FAA, "my expectation is that person is in the office essentially counting paper clips," Sabatini said. But the agency's top safety official also had harsh words for SWA, against which FAA has proposed a $10.2 million fine. "That an airline with Southwest's reputation would think that it was permissible to operate aircraft that were in noncompliance with an AD is astounding to me," he said. by Aaron Karp