After Southwest pilots overran the runway at Hollywood Burbank airport, a review of the cockpit voice recorder “showed that the first officer’s conduct was ‘highly unprofessional.’” There were also questions about incidents caused by pilot error at Hollywood Burbank Airport in California and at Philadelphia International Airport. In that case, Southwest pilots performed three go-arounds due to wind shear warnings, with one resulting in a wingtip strike before it abandoned the landing and diverted to another airport. In the new report made public Wednesday, the Special Counsel’s whistleblowers pointed out “mishandled” FAA responses into a February 2019 accident at Bradley International Airport in Connecticut where a Southwest jet suffered damage to both wings while attempting to land. In that report, one FAA official said “The safety culture at Southwest Airlines consists of using ‘diversion, distraction, and power’ to get what the company wants.” Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General. The report seems to confirm the results of an investigation into Southwest Airlines released in February 2020 by the U.S. The investigation confirmed that senior leadership at the Federal Aviation Administration “mismanaged and interfered” with the arm overseeing Southwest Airlines between 20 “in the face of SWA’s intimidation tactics.” In the report, investigators also accuse FAA of failing to oversee Southwest’s “pattern of assigning mechanics more work than can be reasonably completed and then pressuring them to sign off on work that was not completed or completed by someone else.”

The FAA and Southwest Airlines did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Office of Special Counsel report. The report points widespread blame for how the FAA handles complaints and investigations into Southwest, including how mechanics are assigned work, investigations into pilot safety lapses to the relationship between Southwest executives and FAA officials. Office of Special Counsel sent the report to President Joe Biden’s desk Tuesday, the agency said, citing four whistleblowers who say the FAA “knowingly permitted SWA to engage in unsafe and improper actions that compromised the safety of the flying public.” The report released Wednesday raises serious concerns about the relationship between the FAA and Southwest Airlines, which has been the subject of past investigations into the purchase of foreign airplanes and drew scrutiny for its involvement in Boeing’s development of the 737 Max aircraft. Federal investigators said Wednesday that Dallas-based Southwest Airlines stonewalled FAA investigations and pushed to close inquiries quickly even though it and union officials resisted handing over information.

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