December 2009 Letter to DOT-DHS-DOJ Inspector Generals

FBI, DOJ refuse to investigate charges of judicial corruption
By: Barbara Hollingsworth, Examiner Columnist
12/03/09 3:12 PM EST
LINK

Re: “SEC IG looks into United Airlines bankruptcy,” Nov. 24

For three years, the and the Department of Justice have refused to investigate material evidence of a nationwide criminal racket that has allegedly infiltrated state and federal courts and is unlawfully manipulating and exploiting litigants in bankruptcy, family and probate courts.

According to court documents filed in Chicago, the FBI and DOJ turned a blind eye to retaliation against citizens who attempted to expose the corruption, including “kidnapping of children, false incarceration after being ‘framed’ by criminal elements in civil and criminal authorities, impoverishment, coercion under duress, and serious physical injury up to and including death.”

The 2006 affidavit claims that “multiple judges and lawyers are aware of and/or involved in alleged criminal acts,” but have not reported wrongdoing to authorities in violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct. It specifically mentions four federal judges, including Eugene R. Wedoff, who was appointed chief bankruptcy judge of the Northern District of Illinois in 1986.

Judge Wedoff presided over the 2005 bankruptcy of United Airlines, in which 20 large unsecured creditors lost nearly $18 million. The airline also defaulted on $3.2 billion worth of pension obligations for over 134,000 United employees –the largest pension default in three decades – while its top executives walked off with millions in exit bonuses.

Dan Hanley, public spokesperson the Whistleblowing Airline Employees Association (www.airline-whistleblowers.org) and a former United 777 captain who was forced out of his job, alleges that United management fraudulently withheld information from the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, which took over their pensions, and that PBGC never conducted the federally mandated analysis of the United pension fund before agreeing to its termination. The Securities and Exchange Commission has recently agreed to look into the matter.

The court affadavit also accuses Wedoff, who recently suffered a mysterious fractured skull, and other allegedly crooked judges of squirreling away $40 million in bribes at LaSalle National Bank in Chicago, Wells Fargo and Northern Trust Bank in Arizona. The affadavit further claims that payoffs to Wedoff eventually wound up in the ERW Living Trust, which purchased Lot 114 of Greenfield Place in Maricopa County, Arizona. The signature of ERW trustee “Richard E. Williams” is allegedly identical to Judge Wedoff’s.

The affidavit further charges that the criminal racketeering enterprise headquartered in Phoenix hacked into INSLAW, a court software program, and “through the systematic code-based creation of fraudulent documents and identity theft,” illegally hijacked it to funnel stolen private and government funds into two trusts – Omega and Anchor Pure Trusts – which ultimately dispersed the hot cash into personal trusts such as ERW, which then used fake mortgages for property that had already been bought with cash to further launder the money.

“Multiple lawyers of prominent law firms are allegedly members” of the racket, which uses phony federal marshal credentials to gain access to the Federal Court Building in Chicago, according to the affidavit.

Another signed affidavit, filed by court qualified document examiner Sidney Perceful, accused Wedoff of allowing a bankruptcy trustee to confiscate and destroy records and transfer “large sums of money” to his account at La Salle, which she called “highly irregular and illegal.”

These allegations, if true, point to a massive criminal infiltration of the federal court system. But so far, neither the FBI nor DOJ have bothered to look into them. The big unanswered question is: Why not?

WHISTLEBLOWING AIRLINE EMPLOYEES ASSOCIATION
"Patriotism and Freedom of Speech in Action"

Please read the correspondence found by clicking on the links below, while noting the dates of each letter, and kindly forward this email to all members of your email network, while requesting that they do likewise ad infinitum.

Link 1
Link 2
Link 3
Letter to Senator Daniel Akaka - September 2007
Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation Letters
U. S. Treasury Appointment

Then kindly your senators and representatives and demand that a congressional investigation be launched into the charges of alleged corruption in the United Airlines bankruptcy. You might also consider dropping a copy of this article off at the desk of your local congressional office and newspaper editor asking their support in this campaign.

You will note that President Obama has been apprised of some of these issues for some time, as have certain members of congress and relevant branches of government. He campaigned on a promise of a greater openness of government and enhanced protection for federal whistleblowers.

Like Bob Maclean, I guess I may soon discover whether or not our president intends to honor his promises.

Letters To Obama and Congressional Leaders

Letters to Office of Inspector General

Good luck to all...there is strength in unity and numbers.

Best regards,

Dan Hanley

My Sarbanes-Oxley allegations include allegations of bankruptcy fraud, pension fraud, securities fraud, and judicial corruption associated with the United Airlines bankruptcy.

I have also been working closely with Bob Maclean, Spencer Pickard, and Craig Sawyer on their issues.

Additionally, I have been working with Tom Devine and Gabe Bruno of the FAA Whistleblower Alliance and his group on FAA whistleblowers such as Bogdan Dzakovic, Chris Monteleon, Anne Whiteman, and others.

I have also been in email/phone and/or personal contact with Sibel Edmonds, Coleen Rowley, Alan Premel, Sabrina DeSousa, Jesselyn Radick, Betsy Combier, Jan Scwartz, Zena Crenshaw, Kate Hanni of http://www.facebook.com/l/38d2d;www.FlyersRights.org, and many others wherein I am in the preliminary stages of coordination of a film documentary on whistleblowers with folks in the film industry.

Update: SEC IG looks into United Airlines bankruptcy
By: Barbara Hollingsworth
Examiner Columnist
11/25/09 4:51 PM EST

David Kotz, inspector general of the Securities and Exchange Commission, acknowledged that the agency did not respond appropriately to allegations made in November 2007 by former pilot Dan Hanley that United Airlines violated the Sarbanes-Oxley Act during its post-9/11 Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. The law was passed after financial shenanigans by Enron management cratered the energy company.

In a Nov. 3 letter, Kotz told Hanley, now head of the Whistleblowing Airline Employees Association that after reviewing his complaint, “we did not believe that sufficient action was taken by the Office of Investor Education and Advocacy.” Kotz said he was referring the matter directly to SEC Enforcement Division senior counsel Michelle Barrans for possible criminal action.

One of Hanley’s allegations was that the Department of Justice worked out a deferred prosecution agreement with United management, essentially giving them a pass on criminal charges and allowing them to collect millions of dollars in exit bonuses while United vendors, shareholders and employees – who lost their pensions – were hung out to dry.

Hanley, a veteran pilot who was forced out of his job after complaining about lax safety at the airline, also alleges that the Chicago judge who presided over the United Airline bankruptcy proceedings maintained a $40 million bribery fund, part of which was held in a land trust in Arizona under his initials.

UAL Second Amended Complaint

FAA whistle-blower safety warnings found to have merit
By Allan Chernoff, CNN Sr. Correspondent
LINK

A federal investigation into Federal Aviation Administration employee whistle-blower safety complaints has found more than two dozen to be on the mark, CNN has learned, potentially putting the public's safety at risk.

The federal Office of Special Counsel, which investigates allegations of reprisal against whistle-blowers, tells CNN it has made a "positive determination" that the FAA improperly responded to 27 current cases of FAA employee whistle-blowers warning of safety violations ranging from airline maintenance concerns to runway and air traffic control issues.

"It means that FAA is a very sick agency," said Tom Devine, legal director of the non-profit Government Accountability Project. "There's never been an agency that's had that large of a surge of whistle-blowers whose concerns were vindicated by the government's official whistle-blower protection office."

The Department of Transportation told CNN, "We acknowledge it's a large number of cases."

"We take whistle-blower complaints very seriously and we fully cooperate with all of the investigations," said FAA spokesperson Laura J. Brown.

Among the warnings found to have merit are those of FAA inspector Christopher Monteleon, who flagged safety problems at Colgan Air for several years before a Colgan plane crashed near Buffalo in February killing 50 people. He told CNN he's faced retaliation at the FAA for pointing out issues including faulty aircraft manuals and poor cockpit procedures he observed during in-flight aircraft testing.

"My supervisor called me into his office and said, 'Stop your investigation.' He said that these violations never occurred," said Monteleon.

But Monteleon continued raising safety concerns about the airline. Eventually he was demoted and put on leave of absence.

"I had my aviation inspector credentials taken from me," Monteleon told CNN. "It has just been humiliating. It's been awful."

The FAA says it does not believe any of Monteleon's reassignments were retaliatory, and cannot comment further because this is a personnel issue covered by privacy laws.

While the Office of Special Counsel has found merit in Monteleon's charges of safety violations, the Special Counsel continues to investigate his claim that he was the victim of retaliation for pressing his safety concerns.

Though passenger safety is at stake, the Office of Special Counsel found the FAA has repeatedly deferred to the airlines it regulates.

"That's shocking, and it's really unconscionable for a government agency that's supposed to be about safety, not about witch hunts for those who find safety lacking," said Mary Schiavo, inspector general of the Department of Transportation from 1990-1996, who is now an attorney representing families of accident victims.

What's going on at FAA? Critics say it's the culture.

In 2003, former FAA administrator Marion Blakey established a "Customer Service Initiative" that defined airlines as customers, rather than the flying public. The current Transportation Department inspector general Calvin Scovel, found, "FAA's definition of its customer has had a pervasively negative, although unintended, impact on its oversight program."

While there's no evidence of illegal dealings, the FAA has an active revolving door. Agency managers regularly go on to work in the aviation industry while industry executives take top spots at FAA.

-Former FAA administrator Marion Blakey is now president and CEO of the Aerospace Industries Association.

-Former FAA chief operating officer Russell Chew moved on to become president of Jet Blue Airways, where he just stepped down and took on the role of Senior Adviser for the company.

-FAA's chief operating officer of air traffic, Hank Krakowski, came from United Airlines where he held a number of senior management positions, including vice president of flight operations.

-Linda Daschle, wife of the former Senate Democratic leader, was the FAA's acting administrator, and then became a lobbyist representing the airline industry.

"There's a very cozy relationship between the lobbyists for the industry and the Department of Transportation and the FAA," said Schiavo.

As in all federal agencies, senior executives leaving the FAA are subject to a one-year "cooling off" period that forbids them from representing a client before the FAA.

The new transportation secretary Ray LaHood and FAA administrator Randy Babbitt, who took office June 1, say they will make sure whistle-blowers are heard.

"We will pay attention to any kind of complaint or accusation or any concern expressed by an employee of FAA. It's a new day at the FAA and at DOT," LaHood told CNN.

FAA last year established a Safety Issues Reporting System for employees to raise safety concerns. FAA also tracks employee hotline complaints in its General Counsel Office.

But, the agency has resisted calls to establish an independent office to investigate whistle-blower safety claims. The pending House bill to reauthorize FAA would require the agency to establish such an office. The Senate still has to write its version of the bill.

The Office of Special Counsel has referred all 27 cases to the transportation secretary who is investigating and must tell the Special Counsel what steps will be taken to fix the safety problems.

US Airways

White Collar Corruption

FAA union: Inspector's memo leads others to raise concerns
by Mark Zdechlik, Minnesota Public Radio
September 8, 2005
LINK

More FAA inspectors have reportedly come forward to express concerns about the safety of Northwest Airlines planes, while the airline's mechanics union is on strike.

The union that represents Federal Aviation Administration inspectors says more FAA personnel are stepping forward and raising safety concerns about Northwest Airlines. A Twin Cities-based inspector wrote to FAA management three days into the strike, alleging maintenance errors by Northwest managers and replacement workers. The FAA says the airline is safe and no other inspectors have come forward with similar concerns.

St. Paul, Minn. — Just a few days into the now nearly three-week-old Northwest Airlines mechanics strike, FAA inspector Mark Lund wrote a memo to FAA management sharply criticizing the maintenance work of some replacement employees and management mechanics.

Minnesota Public Radio News obtained a copy of Lund's memo from a source close to the situation, and the FAA has authenticated the document.

Lund cited numerous incidents of maintenance errors.

-- A manager unable to conduct an engine test of an A-320 aircraft, because he can't find the correct switches on the instrument panel.

-- A replacement worker trying to assess the condition of brake wear pins. but unaware the brakes must be engaged for a proper inspection.

-- Repairs on a DC-10 wing fuel tank completed without a Northwest-required "OK to close" inspection. The omission was discovered, the tank was reopened, and the inspection completed.

-- A Northwest manager planning to allow a DC-10 to fly to Hawaii, even though human waste from a damaged lavatory duct had spilled into an electrical equipment bay housing flight and navigational components. The FAA intervened and ensured the plane was cleaned and checked.

Lund's memo concluded the situation at Northwest "jeopardizes life or property."

He called on FAA management to bolster scrutiny of Northwest, and require the airline to pare back its flight operations to prevent maintenance errors.

Northwest has declined to comment on Lund's memo, and instead reissued a statement saying that safety is of paramount importance to every employee at Northwest Airlines.

Lund's memo coincided with a big increase in the number of Northwest planes out of service early in the strike. The company's Web site now indicates the number of planes out of service has declined significantly, and is lower than it was before the strike.

In a letter sent Tuesday to the striking mechanics union, Northwest said its technical operations in the Twin Cities and Detroit are functioning smoothly.

Lund is not talking with reporters. But officials with the union that represents FAA inspectors are.

Linda Goodrich is the national vice president for flight standards with the Professional Airways Systems Specialists, known as PASS.

Goodrich says numerous FAA inspectors assigned to Northwest and other carriers continue see the same maintenance shortfalls at Northwest that prompted Lund to write his safety memorandum.

"Several people have come forward stating that they are concurring with what Mark is saying," says Goodrich. "And they, too, want attention to safety, and they're raising the concerns through the proper channels."

But FAA spokesman Greg Martin says none of the agency's other roughly 80 full-time inspectors assigned to Northwest have contacted agency management to express concerns similar to those in the Lund memo.

"We have received no reports similar in content or scope of Mr. Lund, or anything to indicate that Northwest is not flying in a safe and airworthy manner," says Martin. "Certainly I can't confirm what the union may or may not have received, other than it would probably be more helpful, and in everybody interest, that if they are receiving such reports that they would submit them to us."

Martin says Northwest's operations are safe. He says the FAA has not changed its oversight of the airline since receiving Lund's list of concerns.

Martin says Lund's memo and complaints about Lund from Northwest triggered extensive investigations by both the FAA and the Department of Transportation's Office of Inspector General.

One inquiry is examining Lund's safety claims. The second is looking into allegations from Northwest that Lund, himself a union activist although not affiliated with Northwest's mechanics union, has acted unprofessionally and intimidated Northwest's replacement workforce.

Linda Goodrich from the union that represents Lund and other FAA inspectors says documenting maintenance concerns through the normal channels does not appear to be getting FAA management's attention, and she expects frustrated inspectors will soon take their complaints to the next level.

"If you see a systemic problem and you see lack of change, then you are left with no other choice but to start filing a letter of investigation, notifying the facility that you're investigating a particular problem. And that leads to a potential enforcement action and I know that that's where they're at now," says Goodrich. "They're starting to fill out the paperwork getting into the next phase, because the carrier's not changing the way they're doing their business."

The FAA says it hopes to have a clearer understanding of the various claims Lund and Northwest management have made by sometime next week.

In Depth January 30, 2008
Airline Safety: A Whistleblower's Tale
A new report spotlights how FAA inspectors must battle not only carriers but their own agency, too
by Stanley Holmes, Business Week
LINK

After mechanics at Northwest Airlines went out on strike on Aug. 20, 2005, Federal Aviation Administration safety inspector Mark Lund began to see troubling signs. One replacement mechanic didn't know how to test an engine. Another couldn't close a cabin door. Many did not seem properly trained. In Lund's view, their inexperience resulted in dangerous mistakes. One DC-10, for example, had a broken lavatory duct that allowed human waste to spill onto vital navigation equipment. The leak developed during a flight from Amsterdam to Minneapolis. Northwest (NWA) planned to let the plane continue on to Honolulu with the perilous and putrid problem unfixed—until one of Lund's fellow safety inspectors in Minneapolis intervened.

Just two days after the strike began, Lund fired off a "safety recommendation for accident prevention" letter to his supervisors and to FAA headquarters in Washington. It was the loudest alarm he had the authority to ring. Claiming that "a situation exists that jeopardizes life," Lund proposed cutting back on Northwest's flight schedule until mechanics and inspectors could do their job "without error." But instead of taking harsh action against the airline, the agency punished him. On Aug. 29, Lund's supervisors confiscated the badge that gave him access to Northwest's facilities and gave him a desk job. That happened to be the same day the airline sent a letter to the FAA complaining about Lund's allegedly disruptive and unprofessional conduct. The FAA says it treated Lund fairly.

As the airline escalated its war against Lund, he counter­attacked. Going over the heads of multiple layers of FAA managers, Lund faxed his safety recommendation to Mark Dayton, then the Democratic senator for Northwest's home state of Minnesota. Dayton, in turn, brought the matter to the attention of the Inspector General for the Transportation Dept., which oversees the FAA.

In the two years after Lund blew the whistle on the unaddressed problems he perceived at Northwest, he says, the FAA made his life uncomfortable. Now Lund is returning the favor. On Sept. 27, 2007, the Inspector General released a report on the episode that lambasted the FAA for its treatment of Lund, who held on to his job despite what he claims was an effort to fire him. At the request of the Inspector General, the agency is now in the process of modifying the procedures it uses to review safety allegations raised by inspectors. The FAA is bracing for more scrutiny on this issue. In March, the House aviation subcommittee plans to hold a hearing on an alleged incident of retaliation involving an inspector for Southwest Airlines.

The "FAA's handling of (Lund's) safety concerns appeared to focus on discounting the validity of the complaints," the Inspector General's office wrote in its report. "A potential negative consequence of FAA's handling of this safety recommendation is that the other inspectors may be discouraged from bringing safety issues to FAA's attention."
On-the-Ground Cops

Lund's story shines a spotlight on a conflict that most passen­gers have no idea exists: the one between safety inspectors and airlines. The inspectors are the on-the-ground cops who ensure that engines fire up properly, that the wing flaps function, and that all of the other complex machinery in an aircraft is in good working order. They have broad discretion to halt and delay flights—power that often rankles the thinly stretched, financially strapped carriers. When an inspector launches a formal investigation into an apparent safety violation at a passenger airline, something that happened more than 200 times last year, it often triggers costly repairs. And when the bill exceeds $50,000, the FAA must issue a press release alerting the world to the problem.

The airlines sometimes fight back. Executives meet constantly with local FAA officials on a wide variety of issues and occasionally lodge informal complaints against tough inspectors. From time to time, the carriers bring their concerns directly to the agency's top official: the FAA administrator. "If the airline feels uncomfortable, management will call the FAA administrator," says Linda Goodrich, a former inspector who is now vice-president of the Professional Airways Systems Specialists (PASS) union, which represents inspectors and played no role in Lund's dispute with the agency. "The FAA administrator will immediately demand to know what we are doing to them. You can imagine an inspector trying to do his work when his local management is so fearful of the airline."

Several safety inspectors told BusinessWeek that they had also experienced or witnessed retaliation. (Most of the safety inspectors interviewed by BusinessWeek did not want to be identified by name in this article for that reason.) The House aviation subcommittee is probing an episode in which FAA management allegedly punished an inspector in 2007, according to three sources with knowledge of the subcommittee's probe. Worried that some of the aluminum skins on Southwest's (LUV) older Boeing 737s were prone to cracking, this inspector called for the planes to be rotated out of the fleet until they could all be repaired—a process that would have been time-consuming and costly. He was reassigned though later reinstated in his previous job. A Southwest spokesperson says the airline "is unaware" of the concerns raised by this inspector and "has no knowledge of a probe by the House aviation subcommittee." The FAA declined to comment.

Several safety inspectors interviewed by BusinessWeek said the pressure not to impose big expenses on the carriers increased after the September 11 terrorist attacks, which threw the airline industry into an economic tailspin. They said that this led to a decrease in the reporting of safety violations. In the six-year period following September 11, 2001, the number of so-called enforcement investigation reports (EIRs) filed for the six biggest airlines fell by 62%, to 1,480, compared with the prior six-year period, according to FAA data reviewed by BusinessWeek. The number of domestic passengers grew by about 42% during this same period.

The decline in EIRs "begs for some type of congressional oversight and inquiry," says Jim Hall, former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. "The numbers, as they stand alone, are alarming."

The FAA argues that there is no cause for concern. The agency notes that the fatal accident rate has steadily declined over the past decade, and it disputes many of the factual allegations and criticisms leveled by Lund, Hall, the IG, and other flight inspectors interviewed by BusinessWeek. The FAA says that all of the safety issues raised by Lund during the Northwest strike were appropriately investigated, and that the public was never in any danger. It adds that airlines have no power to retaliate against inspectors. "The FAA listens to our inspectors and expects them to investigate all potential safety risks," the agency wrote in response to questions posed by BusinessWeek.

Northwest says that it did not retaliate against Lund, that passengers were never in danger during the 2005 strike, and that it performed appropriate maintenance on every flight during that period, including the one with the broken lavatory duct. The company adds that its training program has always exceeded FAA standards. "Northwest's safety record during this period was unblemished," says Roman Blahoski, media relations manager for Northwest Airlines. "It has always been the policy of Northwest to maintain a collaborative and professional relationship with all of the government agencies that oversee us; this includes the FAA."

"I'll Stop the Airplane" There's little doubt that Lund rubs some people the wrong way. He knows the agency's thick rule book almost by heart, and he interprets it strictly. "Mark stands up and speaks the truth," says fellow inspector Mike Gonzales, who works in Scottsdale, Ariz. "Some people, including even his colleagues, don't like him for that." Another colleague called him "dogmatic" and "hard to like." Before joining the FAA in 1990 Lund worked as an aircraft electrician for the U.S. Navy and as maintenance director for a small airline in Minneapolis. He makes no apologies for his sometimes abrasive personality. "I'm here to keep the public safe," says Lund, who is an official in the local PASS union. If a concern arises, "I'll stop the airplane, and I'll watch every step."

Lund worked in Bloomington, Minn., at the FAA office responsible for supervising Northwest Airlines. In FAA-speak, it was a certificate management office. It had about 60 inspectors and was overseen by the FAA's regional headquarters in Chicago. By the time of the 2005 strike, Northwest had already sent a file of complaints about Lund to Chicago "going back many years," according to the IG report.

Lund claims that most of the airline's complaints arose when he delayed planes. In 1993 Lund prevented five DC-10s from taking off because Northwest had not repaired passenger-seat defects that would cause them to come apart in a crash. "The paperwork had been signed off, but we found that they had not been repaired properly," Lund told BusinessWeek. He claims that Northwest pressured his bosses, who in turn told him to return to the office and assured him that the airline would fix the problem. "I'm sure they took care of it," he said. "But we have no verification."

While inspecting a Northwest 747 in 1994, Lund discovered that when its oxygen masks dropped in an emergency they were dangling two feet above the head of a typical passenger. That made the masks useless. He stopped the airplane until the problem was fixed. "The carrier went ballistic," said a Northwest Airlines FAA inspector with direct knowledge of the matter. Northwest declined to comment on these incidents.

Once the 2005 strike got under way, Lund and his fellow inspectors established 24-hour-a-day surveillance of Northwest's 4,400 replacement mechanics. Inspectors met with their supervisors every day to discuss potential safety issues. But according to Lund, FAA managers ignored inspectors' warnings. Lund came to the conclusion that he had only one option: to file the special safety recommendation report, which is the only method FAA inspectors have to raise safety concerns without having their words potentially edited by supervisors. The FAA says it "thoroughly investigated" Lund's concerns.

On Aug. 21 Lund worked late into the night drafting a nine-page memo that described his observations of 10 separate maintenance mistakes. Besides advocating a cutback in Northwest's flight schedule, he proposed upgrading its mechanic-training program and increasing FAA surveillance of the carrier. The next day, Lund says, his direct supervisor got a call from a higher-level manager ordering Lund to be barred from inspecting Northwest planes. Then the carrier fired off the letter of complaint against Lund, according to the IG report. It said Northwest "would no longer permit [Lund] to have unescorted access to Northwest facilities." In response, the FAA decided to stop him from conducting on-site inspections altogether.

PASS union official Good­rich and a half-dozen safety inspectors interviewed by BusinessWeek said they were aware of similar cases but there were no public records of these incidents because the inspectors in question had not taken the extreme step of complaining to a senator. "Lund was willing to lose his job over principle. He was a serious exception to the rule," says Goodrich.

A comparable case unfolded in 1999 when a safety inspector named Charles Lund (no relation) sent an e-mail to FAA officials and airline executives complaining that the agency was not adequately supervising U.S. carriers flying to Russia. Four months later the FAA demoted him. After an investigation by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, an agency that investigates mistreatment complaints by Federal employees, the FAA agreed to rescind the demotion and pay Lund's legal fees. The FAA declined to comment on the episode.

Blowouts on Landing

In Mark Lund's case, Northwest's complaint managed to get him temporarily silenced. But the airline's problems continued to mount. During the first six weeks of the strike inspectors identified at least 121 safety problems stemming from workers' lack of training and inability to "properly complete maintenance functions," according to the IG report.

Although nobody was injured during the strike, at least one of these incidents was quite serious. On Aug. 20, four tires blew out when a Boeing 757 touched ground in Detroit, a potentially life-threatening safety failure. According to Northwest's Blahoski, "there was no prior history of…brake valve issues on this aircraft and the mechanical failure was not a result of any maintenance process or procedure irregularities."

In early September, 2005, the IG's office dispatched a team to investigate Lund's complaints. Its staff determined that other inspectors shared his concerns; they reported that "replacement workers were not receiving proper training and were not properly addressing technical problems as they arose," according to the IG report. The inspectors also said that FAA management discouraged levying fines against Northwest, "thus leading to ineffective oversight of the carrier."

Lund worked in the office for six weeks until the Inspector General's office brokered a deal that allowed him to return to his former duties in early October, 2005. Once reinstated, he got to work investigating the emergency 757 landing in Detroit. Lund uncovered photos and other documents indicating that in Seattle a replacement mechanic had inadvertently jammed a brake cable. This prevented full release of the brake, causing the tires to blow out upon landing, he concluded.

Emboldened, Lund sent off another safety recommendation on Oct. 12, 2005, describing his findings. He repeated the unheeded recommendations of the earlier memo and added a small barb. "Northwest Airlines is an operating air carrier," Lund wrote. "It is not a school to train its mechanics while it operates at a safety risk to the public."

Within a month the strike ended, and life started to return to normal for Northwest. But Lund believes FAA management started to try to fire him. Supervisors started criticizing him for small errors. His directions were suddenly sent to him in writing and he was given strict deadlines for the completion of tasks. Supervisors "singled me out," says Lund. "It created additional stress."

Lund was also given orders he found unpalatable, according to co-workers. Once, a manager forced him to revise a report to edit out a reference to a minor safety problem. "When he refused, they issued a letter of warning and then a letter of reprimand," says one inspector with direct knowledge of the matter. That put Lund on the edge of dismissal. "They didn't want any more problems with the carrier and they didn't want any problems with Mark," this inspector says. The FAA did not comment on accusations that it attempted to dismiss Lund.

Vindication from the IG's office took nearly two years. As the IG recommended, the FAA is creating a new procedure to review concerns raised by inspectors. It will require independent agency staffers—from outside the inspector's direct line of supervision—to investigate disputes between inspectors and airlines. Lund says he now has less conflict with Northwest and FAA supervisors than before. The report "reaffirms to me to keep going, to keep doing what I'm doing," says Lund.

With Dean Foust in Atlanta