A recent spate of issues involving United Airlines has resulted in
greater scrutiny and oversight from federal regulators.
Those
issues include a piece of the
outer fuselage falling off one jet, an engine fire, a plane skidding off the
runway and a plane losing a tire during takeoff. All of that, in addition to
other problems, happened within one week earlier this month.
United's vice president of corporate
safety, Sasha Johnson, said the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will examine
"multiple areas of our operation."
"Over the next several weeks, we will
begin to see more of an FAA presence in our operation as they begin to review
some of our work processes, manuals and facilities," she said in a note to
employees. "We welcome their engagement and are very open to hear from
them about what they find and their perspective on things we may need to change
to make us even safer."
United is also a big customer of airplane manufacturer
Boeing, which has been under its own scrutiny and investigation from government
regulators since the January 5 incident in which a door panel fell off an
Alaska Airlines plane mid-flight.
The FAA said it "routinely monitors
all aspects of an airline's operation."
In a statement, an agency spokesperson said
FAA oversight "focuses on an airline's compliance with applicable
regulations; ability to identify hazards, assess and mitigate risk; and
effectively manage safety."
FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said he spoke with United
CEO Scott Kirby about the problems. Kirby said the issues are not a pattern and
have been unrelated to each other.
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