FAA to fine Southwest Airlines

The ersatz impostor federal regulators of aviation have failed this country yet again, with their own arrogance, malice, incompetence, and ignorance.

The bottom line on the 60,000-plus Southwest Airlines flights in 2006-2007 and the many cracks in the airplanes used in those flights, called by Rep. Oberstar as “one of the worst safety violations” he has ever seen:

(1) the FAA let it happen, and thereby callously and malevolently put us all in harm’s way;

(2) it happened under Bobby Sturgell’s watch as well as Marion Blakey’s watch;

(3) the FAA looked the other way when first apprised of it happening - so that now, the only question is how high in the FAA did that cover-up go, just like we asked about the Watergate burglary and Sturgell’s namesake Frank Sturgis a few years ago; and

(4) the FAA is now fining Southwest, to give itself, the FAA, political cover; not to mention likely to try to subsidize the now-spendthrift FAA’s extensive litigation defense-costs brought about by 13-and-counting litigations and the FAA’s mismanagement and trampling of the rights of innocent Americans.

This is the FAILED AVIATION AGENCY. The American public must hit the “Eject” button on Bobby Sturgell, and replace him with an Administrator who is actually competent. NOW.

Sturgell and the current FAA are an absolute disaster just waiting to happen. It is an outrageous abomination that Bobby Sturgell and his FAA cannot even bother to coordinate with other federal agencies like the TSA and the USDOT so as to ensure: (A) that those that would harm our country do not even enter, much less be trained at and matriculate from, FAA-certified flight schools; (B) that those that would harm our country cannot in any way gain entry to, much less work for, FAA-certified aircraft repair facilities worldwide which may work on fuel-laden, passenger-filled aircraft bound for the USA, as discussed at the February 29, 2008 Senate Commerce Committee hearing at which Sturgell and USDOT head Mary Peters testified, now available on the Internet; (C) that those that would harm our country be required to spend at least more time than the perfunctory 18 seconds through the TSA cordon at Newark Liberty International Airport as passengers have recently experienced at EWR, as reported by the press this week.

Bobby Sturgell is a harmful and dangerous individual whose malice and incompetence must be summarily rejected by the further outcry of the American people. Bobby Sturgell must be ousted from office as current Acting Head of the FAA. It is abundantly clear that he is ONLY acting – and for that matter, he is a bad actor.

Moreover, Bobby Sturgell is a liar who has already perjured himself repeatedly in the February 8, 2008 Commerce Committee Hearings, to save his own proverbial reptilian skin, and to protect solely the interests of the monied aeromercantile complex for which Sturgell regularly shills.

Citizens in Rockland County, NY, as well as citizens in New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, and elsewhere, were mouth-agape aghast while watching the evasive and false under oath testimony and answers given by Bobby Sturgell on Thursday, February 7, 2008, to the Senate Commerce Committee. Our citizen group Quiet Rockland has thanked Congress for making the webcast testimony of Bobby Sturgell and the proceedings generally, available to all of us, real time and now archived, through RealPlayer software, on the Senate website.

Bobby Sturgell arrogantly insulted Senators Boxer, McCaskill, and Lautenberg, among all of the rest of us, with his persistent utter refusal to answer the most simple of direct Yes-or-No questions. Sturgell made Watergate conspirators sound like they testified on sodium pentothal by comparison. Senator McCaskill asked the core essential question: Do you think air traffic controller fatigue was a contributing factor[?], to runway incursion mishaps, and the slipperiest of eels, the eel of Sturgell, the Sturg-eel, sought to squirm away in the scripted slime of non answers.

Bobby Sturgell, acting FAA head for three months, testified that he had no prior knowledge of the San Diego aircraft near-miss a few weeks ago?

LIE.

Sturgell testified that he had no prior knowledge of recent Newark, NJ departures flying out in the wrong direction in the past few weeks?

LIE.

The nomination of Bobby Sturgell as proposed FAA Administrator should not be confirmed. Instead, after he first personally apologizes to Senators Boxer, McCaskill, and Lautenberg, Bobby Sturgell should then be INDICTED - for contempt of Congress, for rendering perjured testimony under oath, and for already putting millions of otherwise innocent and unsuspecting Americans directly at risk and in the way of harm. Quiet Rockland has now faxed every Senator on the Commerce Committee, asking them to please refer this matter to the AG, IG, GAO, and a Special Prosecutor, and to please now cook this eel.

John J. Tormey III, Esq.
Quiet Rockland

Quiet Rockland of Rockland County, New York is enraged over the callous criminal disregard for safety and human life demonstrated by Southwest Airlines (NYSE: “LUV”) and the FAA. We call for: (1) a nationwide traveler and consumer boycott of Southwest, and (2) a federal criminal investigation of Southwest and “failed regulator” FAA to be spear-headed by the United States Attorney General and a special prosecutor.

The persons that should be flying Southwest at this point, should be only those referred by Doctor Kevorkian. Although the depraved Southwest spin-machine audaciously ‘assures’ us Southwest’s six (6) cracked-fuselage aircraft were “never a safety problem”, Southwest should tell that to the victims of the 1988 Aloha Airlines disaster. There, metal fatigue on an aging Boeing 737 caused 18 feet of fuselage to be ripped off the plane causing grievous injuries and loss of life. House Transportation Committee Chairman James Oberstar in his press conference Saturday, posted on “www.cspan.org”, presented detailed evidence incriminating Southwest and “Bobby” Sturgell’s failed FAA. The incriminating events occurred while “Bobby” Sturgell was Deputy Administrator and Acting Administrator of the FAA. On Saturday, Representative Oberstar thereupon rightfully excoriated the aero-perps for their long-standing “tombstone mentality”. Although criminal and morally reprehensible, and now apparent after a many-month detailed Congressional investigation, Southwest and FAA are clearly in the insalubrious business of making those tombstones happen, in addition to simply reacting to those tombstones post facto.

As recently as last year, Southwest Airlines, with the complicity of supposed federal regulator FAA, on at least 47 of Southwest’s Boeing 737 aircraft, on between 1,451 and 60,000 flights, over a period of two-and-one-half years, deliberately put approximately 200,000 or more unsuspecting travelers in harm’s way - making them fly in un-inspected, non-compliant, aged, and in some cases fuselage-cracked commercial aircraft. Southwest knew the names and faces of their potential victims. Southwest gladly took their money, and for that matter at this point Southwest owes each of them at least a rebate in full of their ticket prices. This was not mere negligence. Irrespective of what forensic lesser charge might technically ultimately apply once further Congressional investigation concludes, the acts and omissions of Southwest and collaborator FAA were tantamount to attempted murder, on a massive scale.

This WILL not stand.

Quiet Rockland asks and encourages those Southwest employees tired of subscribing to their company’s tombstone culture, to leave their sinking airship now to find other and better employ at a responsible airline that actually acknowledges the dignity of the individual human traveler. We further ask every American consumer to now act in solidarity - cancel all flights and other business with Southwest – boycott the airline which we today re-name “Air Kevorkian” - and just say “No” to Southwest, to FAA, and to the greed of the aeromercantile complex that continually and habitually puts profits over people’s lives.

And, as to Southwest stockholders? Vote your conscience.

John J. Tormey III, Esq.
Quiet Rockland