Posted in Technically Speaking on June 26th, 2008
FAA Manager Retires
News from the FAA reports that the manager at the center of the Southwest Airlines safety incident has retired. See news item.
Stephen Prentice wrote about the situation in the May issue: What Do You Have to Do to Get Fired?
Bill O’Brien writes about the safety inspectors that reported him in the July issue. They had to resort to the Whistleblower Act to get someone to listen to the safety issues.
So who gets the best deal, the one who gets to retire or the ones that get to keep working with a cloud over their heads?
Thanks for reading.
Barb Zuehlke, Managing Editor
That’s our government at work for you. A couple guys at a repair station make a mistake (either intentional or unintentionally) and get criminally prosecuted (ValueJet), granted a plane did in fact crash and they quite probably should have been prosecuted.
Some government official gives consent for a potentially disastrous AD not to be complied with and he gets to “retire”, and the airline gets hit with a multi million dollar fine.
I wonder – has any government official ever been criminally charged for negligently not performing his job?
Seems like they all got off easy! I think they should be up on criminal charges.
Followed a link to your article (source is URL above). Read your article and then the comment from Rob. Rob is absolutely correct - that manager SHOULD be up on criminal charges. What people like that manager are doing (and that means the overwhelming majority of FAA supervisors/managers) borders on treason (one definition of “treason” is “the betrayal of a trust or confidence; breach of faith; treachery”). Their actions (or INactions, as the case may be) are endangering the lives of everyone flying in United States controlled airspace. Although I wanted to continue my career as a Controller until forced out by age limitations, I left early because I could no longer be a party to the destruction of our National Airspace System. Only when the manager in the Southwest case, and other individuals caught flagrantly abusing their positions in the Agency, are held accountable will this dishonorable and unconscionable endangerment to the American flying public be reversed. In the mean time - watch your six!