Remember when the FAA grounded hundreds of Southwest Airlines flights because Southwest had not met the FAA's arbitrary deadline for making a small wiring change that did not create a significant safety hazard?
Well, the FAA has just missed its third deadline for providing records to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel in regard to a genuine safety hazard, namely 1,800+ airline mechanics who obtained their certificates fraudulently. The FAA has tested only a small fraction of those known to have obtained licenses from a "license mill" in Florida, and even then it has only partially tested them.
What is the OSC's response to this intransigence? Is the FAA punished? Does the OSC hold press conferences to denounce the FAA for ignoring the public safety in pursuit of its own agenda? Nope. It issues yet another 30-day extension for the FAA merely to provide information on the mechanic situation. An OSC spokesman justified this on the basis that "the agency is dealing with other issues, such as the grounded flights issue and recent congressional hearings." Funny how Southwest wasn't given any breaks like that despite dealing with such issues as high fuel costs and the stupid, unconstitutional TSA.
UPDATE: I had the Southwest story not quite right. Southwest found the wiring problem and reported it to the FAA, which then proceeded to ground most of American Airlines' flights. (Thanks to John Michael Hall for the correction.)
