Southwest Airlines grounded a few dozen planes and placed three employees on administrative leave early this week after records showed a failure to comply with required safety testing. 

Southwest brought the problem to attention after it discovered discrepancies in its own records, according to reports. The 44 planes that didn’t get checked were immediately grounded, resulting in a cancellation of about 4 percent of Southwest’s flights on Wednesday.
 
By late Wednesday, many of the aircrafts had been checked (which takes approximately 90 minutes), cleared, and returned to service.
 
However, this is not the first time Southwest has failed to comply. The Federal Aviation Administration is also under review by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for failing to follow up after Southwest hadn’t completed required inspections one year ago.
 
According to FAA reports, Southwest had operated 46 Boeing 737s between June 2006 and March 2007 without complying with service inspections of their fuselage areas. Six of those 46 planes were found to have fatigue cracks. In comes instances, Southwest flew planes as many as 30 months past government inspection deadlines.
 
 
 
 
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