FAA PROPOSES CIVIL PENALTIES
September 28, 2015
- $380,600 against Leading Edge Aviation Services, an aircraft repair station, for allegedly violating drug and alcohol testing regulations. The FAA alleges that the company hired 29 individuals for safety-sensitive positions but did not include them in the company’s random drug and alcohol testing pools as required. Also, Leading Edge did not ask 18 employees in safety-sensitive positions about their DOT pre-employment drug or alcohol testing at other companies they had applied to for safety-sensitive positions in the past two years. The FAA also alleges that the company hired 6 individuals for safety-sensitive prior to receiving verified negative pre-employment tests and finally, the company improperly used DOT forms to document drug tests.
- $325,000 against Southwest Airlines for allegedly operating an aircraft that was not in compliance with Federal Aviation Regulations. During an aging aircraft inspection, an FAA inspector found that Southwest improperly recorded a temporary repair to the aircraft’s rear cargo door as a permanent repair This fuselage damage was initially reported in Southwest’s maintenance records in May of 2002 and the temporary repair was made. Southwest was required to complete a permanent repair within 24,000 flights and inspect the temporary repair every 4,000 flights. The FAA alleges Southwest operated the aircraft on 24,831 flights without the required periodic inspections and operated the plane beyond the 24,000 flights without performing a permanent repair.
If you have any questions, please contact Evelyn Sahr (esahr@eckertseamans.com, 202-659-6622) or Drew Derco (dderco@eckertseamans.com, 202-659-6665).