The Washington Post - 12.11.2019

A24 eZ sU the washington post.tuesday, november 12 , 2019

BY LORI ARATANI

Southwest Airlines is o perating
49 jets that may not have been
properly inspected and should be
grounded until it can be deter-
mined that they meet U.S. airwor-
thiness standards, according to a
top official at the Federal Aviation
Administration.
The aircraft in question are
among 88 used jets purchased
from f oreign carriers by Southwest
between 2013 and 2017. The planes
underwent special inspections, in-
cluding reviews of their mainte-
nance records, before being
cleared to fly, according to t he FAA.
But now the quality of those
inspections is being questioned.
In a memo sent to FAA Admin-
istrator Stephen Dickson last
month labeled “URGENT: Action
Required, Southwest Airlines Air-
worthiness Concerns,” H. Clayton
Foushee, director of the FAA’s Of-
fice of Audit and Evaluation,
raised concerns about the con-
tractors Southwest had used to
inspect the aircraft, noting that
subsequent reviews by FAA in-
spectors and the airline had
turned up hundreds of instances
of undocumented repairs that
were made on t he p lanes t hat were
not identified in previous reviews.
I n other instances, Foushee not-
ed, at t he time airworthiness certif-
icates were issued, Southwest Air-

lines “admitted they had not even

translated all the maintenance re-

cords into English, making a com-

plete check of airworthiness im-

possible.”

Foushee recommended that the

agency take immediate action to

suspend or revoke the airworthi-

ness certificates of the 49 planes

that have yet to be reinspected.

“We conclude there is a high

likelihood of a violation of a regula-

tion, order or standard of the FAA

related to aviation safety, which

requires immediate corrective ac-

tion,” F oushee wrote. “A dditionally,

[Southwest Airlines] is unable to

certify to the FAA (or the flying

public) that the remaining 49 air-

craft currently meet FAA airwor-

thiness requirements, and the data

collected to date would indicate

that the majority of them do not.”

However, the FAA has contin-

ued to allow the planes to fly, saying

Southwest is taking the agency’s

concerns seriously.

“The FAA recently indicated

that additional and perhaps expe-

dited review is required,” said

spokeswoman Brandy King. “A s re-

quested in the FAA letter, South-

west met an FAA two-day deadline

to conduct a Safety Risk Analysis

on documentation associated with

the 41 pre-owned aircraft that have

gone through full inspections.

Southwest also complied with a

seven-day deadline to perform a

Safety Risk Analysis on the 38 air-

craft that had yet to be inspected.

Southwest voluntarily initiated a

General Visual Inspection of these

38 aircraft as part of the Safety R isk

Analysis and completed the in-

spections.”

The inspection problems were

first reported by the Wall Street

Journal.

The decision to allow t he planes

to continue to carry passengers

has raised concerns among some

lawmakers. Aviation safety and

FAA oversight have been under

increased scrutiny since the dead-

ly crashes of two Boeing 737 Max

jets. Investigations into the crash-

es, which killed 346 people, have

also highlighted concerns with

the aircraft certification process

and the FAA’s relationship with

manufacturers.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.)

chairman of the Senate Commerce

Committee, wrote in a letter to

Dickson that he was troubled by

reports that aircraft may not meet

standards. “ This... corresponds to

concerns t hat have been brought to

my attention by whistleblowers as

part of my investigation into avia-

tion safety.”

In May 2 018, that aviation safety

inspector was conducting a rou-

tine review and discovered dis-

crepancies in maintenance r ecords

for several of the Southwest planes.

The discovery prompted a full re-

view by the airline.

By November 2018, Southwest

grounded nearly 40 of the 88 air-

craft, including four that had un-

dergone major repairs, which did

not meet FAA requirements.

When the review was complet-

ed, the airline discovered that the

planes had undergone 360 major

repairs that it was unaware of be-

cause they were not reported by the

contractor that had done the work.

Even so, the FAA allowed South-

west to continue to operate the

planes, giving it until J uly 1, 2020, t o

complete its review and to ensure

that the planes meet federal stan-

dards.

But according to a fact sheet

released Monday by the Com-

merce Committee, the FAA in-

spector who made the original

discovery disagreed with t he deci-

sion and continued to raise con-

cerns with senior FAA officials, to

no avail. The inspector then took

the concerns to the Transporta-

tion Department’s inspector gen-

eral, which launched an audit of

the FAA’s safety oversight of

Southwest in June 2018.

O n Oct. 4, Southwest provided

an update on its progress, as re-

quired by its agreement with the

FAA. The airline said it had com-

pleted full reviews of 39 aircraft;

of those, 24 had repairs that did

not meet FAA r equirements.

[email protected]

49 Southwest jets possibly not inspected properly

Office disagreement over U.N.

funding for Palestinians, Tillerson

and Kelly argued to her that she

should work with them to divert

U.S. p olicy from w hat they c onsid-

ered reckless Trump policies. She

refused, she wrote in the new

book, “With All Due R espect.”

“Kelly a nd Tillerson c onfided i n

me that when they resisted the

president, they weren’t being in-

subordinate, they were trying to

save t he country,” Haley wrote.

“It was their decisions, not the

president’s, that were in the best

interests of America, they said.

The president didn’t know what

he was doing,” Haley wrote.

Tillerson also told her that peo-

ple would die if Trump was un-

checked, Haley wrote.

Haley’s account of the disagree-

ment over Palestinian funding

was “absolutely accurate,” said a

senior White House official who

was i n office at t he time.

“It’s 100 p ercent accurate and i t

fits a pattern” in which aides

sought to override Trump, s aid the

official, who spoke on the condi-

tion of anonymity to describe in-

ternal discussions.

Haley also described Tillerson

as “arrogant and condescending,”

and said he resented her access to

Trump. Tillerson did not address

those allegations directly.

Trump’s relationship with Til-

lerson, a former Exxon Mobil chief

executive, deteriorated over

Trump’s first year in office. The

two disagreed over policies in-

cluding U.S. participation in the

Iran nuclear deal and the Paris

climate accord, and Trump came

to see Tillerson as opposed to his

“A merica First” agenda of immi-

gration restrictions and interna-

tional disengagement.

Trump fired Tillerson via Twit-

ter in March 2018. Haley left on

good terms with Trump at the end

of that year.

[email protected]

BY ANNE GEARAN

Former secretary of state Rex
Tillerson denied Monday that he
sought to undermine or work
against President Trump, as for-
mer U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley
claims in a new memoir of her
time in the administration.
“During my s ervice to our c oun-
try as the Secretary of State, at no
time did I, nor to my d irect knowl-
edge did a nyone else s erving along
with me, take any actions to un-
dermine the President,” Tillerson
said in a statement to The Wash-
ington Post.
“My conversations with t he Pres-
ident in the privacy of the Oval
Office were always candid, frank,

and my r ecommendations straight-

forward. Once the President made

a decision, we at the State Depart-

ment undertook our best efforts to

implement that decision,” Tillerson

said. “A mbassador Haley was r arely

a participant in my many meetings

and is not in a position to know

what I may or may not have said to

the President. I continue to be

proud of my s ervice a s our country’s

69th Secretary of State.”

The statement was Tillerson’s

first response to Haley’s character-

ization o f a White H ouse meeting in

which she s aid he and John F. K elly,

then Trump’s chief of staff, told her

that they w ere seeking ways around

Trump to “save the country.”

Haley wrote that after an Oval

Tillerson denies trying

to undermine Trump

Zach gibson/getty images

Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) said Monday he will not seek reelection,

putting his suburban seat at the top of Democratic target lists.

BY MIKE DEBONIS

Fourteen-term GOP Rep. Peter

T. King of New York said Monday

that he would not seek reelection

next year, highlighting a political

and institutional challenge f or Re-

publicans as they seek to halt a

precipitous erosion of voter sup-

port in the suburbs as their party

retreats from the political center

under President Trump.

King is the fifth House member

of the centrist Republican Main

Street Partnership to announce

retirement this year and the 20th

Republican to retire overall. His

decision immediately put his

South Shore Long Island seat near

the top of Democratic target lists

at a time when suburban voters

continue to trend away from Re-

publicans.

Last week’s off-year elections

saw Democrats gain ground in

state and local races in key subur-

ban battlegrounds such as Bucks

County, Pa., greater Indianapolis

and the Hampton Roads region of

Virginia — places that reliably

elected Republicans for decades

until Trump’s 2016 election. Since

then, college-educated women in

particular have abandoned Re-

publican candidates who have

been unable to separate them-

selves from Trump and the hard-

line conservative agenda he has

pursued.

“We’re having a crisis in subur-

ban districts,” said Sarah Cham-

berlain, president and chief exec-

utive of the Main Street Partner-

ship. “ We h ave to talk t o suburban

women, like myself, better. We

have to be addressing their con-

cerns a nd we just aren’t.”

Among the most troubling re-

sults for the GOP last week includ-

ed heavy losses in the collar coun-

ties surrounding Philadelphia, in-

dicating an uphill climb for Rep.

Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), who

narrowly survived the 2018 Dem-

ocratic wave, and continued polit-

ical tail winds for Rep. Andy Kim

(D-N.J.), a freshman representing

the district just across the Dela-

ware River.

Rep. Cheri Bustos (Ill.), the

Democratic Congressional Cam-

paign Committee chairwoman,

said in an interview Monday that

King’s retirement indicated that

Democrats remain on the march

in the suburbs — crediting her

party’s s trong f undraising and ag-

gressive field operations with

driving the spate of retirements.

Bustos said Democrats are tar-

geting as many as 39 districts that

Republicans won in 2018 by

5 points or fewer and where de-

mographic trends are headed in

Democrats’ favor. “We are putting

them on notice,” she said. “We’re

going to play there, and we think

we’ll have some tremendous suc-

cess in 2020.”

King, 75, has been a steadfast

supporter of Trump’s, defending

the fellow Queens native during

his final two years on the House

Intelligence Committee in 20 17

and 2018 amid allegations of Rus-

sian collusion. But King also has a

strong bipartisan streak — rou-

tinely joining Democrats in sup-

porting gun control and efforts to

aid 9/11 responders and opposing

GOP efforts to limit a popular tax

deduction for state and local tax-

es.

In addition to the expected

praise from fellow Republicans,

King’s announcement prompted

praise from some prominent

Democrats. Senate Minority

Leader Charles E. Schumer

(D-N.Y.) said in a tweet Monday

that King “stood head & shoulders

above everyone else” and “never

let others push him away f rom his

principles.”

In a statement announcing his

retirement, King said the main

reason for his decision was the

grueling schedule — “after

28 years of spending 4 days a week

in Washington, D.C., it is time to

end the weekly c ommute.”

King denied any political impe-

tus for his retirement, noting that

his “polling numbers are as strong

as they have ever been” and that

he has a seven-figure campaign

account. And he showed n o sign of

discomfort with Trump, vowing to

vote against his impeachment

and to support his reelection next

year.

Chris Pack, a spokesman for the

National Republican Congressio-

nal Committee, predicted that

King’s seat would remain in Re-

publican hands “thanks in no

small part to the insane socialist

agenda of Democrats in both

Washington and Albany.”

But Trump has clearly been an

anchor on other suburban Repub-

licans, and the GOP’s attempts to

tie Democratic candidates to far-

left elements have sputtered: Af-

ter the 2018 elections, only three

congressional Republicans were

left representing any part of the

greater New York City area: King,

Rep. Christopher H. Smith (N.J.)

and Rep. Lee Zeldin (N.Y.).

King won reelection in 2018

with 53 percent of the vote over

Democrat Liuba Grechen Shirley

— his lowest percentage since first

being elected in 1992. In a state-

ment, Shirley said she was “seri-

ously considering” another run

for Congress, and national Demo-

cratic operatives believe they al-

ready have a top-tier recruit in

Jackie Gordon, an Army Reserve

veteran and Babylon town coun-

cilwoman.

Besides King’s L ong Island s eat,

Democrats have hopes of picking

up House seats held by retiring

GOP moderates Susan Brooks

(Ind.) and Will Hurd (Tex.). The

seats of other centrist retirees

such as Reps. Paul Cook (Calif.),

John Shimkus (Ill.) and Greg

Walden (Ore.) are probably out of

Democratic reach, but each could

be replaced by a more conserva-

tive Republican who could be less

inclined to work across the aisle.

Democrats, meanwhile, are fac-

ing a demographic crisis of their

own as rural white voters flee

their party for Republicans. But

that trend — while troubling in

many statewide races and for the

presidential landscape — poses

less of an existential threat to the

Democratic House majority,

which counts only a handful of

rural-district members in its

ranks.

Still, the exodus of veteran law-

makers has not been a n exclusive-

ly Republican problem: Three se-

nior Democratic appropriators

with reputations for bipartisan-

ship have announced their e xits in

recent months, passing up the

chance to influence hundreds of

billions of dollars in government

spending after decades of climb-

ing up the House ranks.

Last week, Rep. Peter J. Visclo-

sky (Ind.) announced his retire-

ment on the 35th anniversary of

his first election to Congress —

joining House Appropriations

Committee Chairwoman Nita M.

Lowey (N.Y.) and Rep. José E. Ser-

rano (N.Y.), chairman of the pan-

el’s c ommerce, justice and science

subcommittee. V isclosky, a s chair-

man of the Defense appropria-

tions subcommittee, is poised to

direct $690 billion of Pentagon

spending for 2020 — if Republi-

cans and Democrats can agree on

an overarching spending plan,

which r emains i n doubt.

[email protected]

John Wagner contributed to this

report.

GOP Rep. Peter King

announces retirement

“We’re having a crisis

in suburban districts.

We have to talk to

suburban women, like

myself, better.”

Sarah Chamberlain, head of the

Republican main street Partnership

Feeling your best means more than taking care of just your physical needs. That’s why our new

plan for federal retirees takes a total approach to health with benefits like:

• $0 copays


• Prescriptions for as little as $2


• SilverSneakers

®fitness membership at no extra cost

• Home health assessments

At Aetna, we care for the whole you —body, mind and spirit. Learn more through live chat,

webinars or one-on-one phone consultations at aetnafeds.com/Advantage

Aetna Medicare is a PDP, HMO, PPO plan with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in our plans depends

on contract renewal. See Evidence of Coverage for a complete description of plan benefits, exclusions,

limitations and conditions of coverage. Plan features and availability may vary by service area.

This is a brief description of the features of the Aetna Advantage plan. Before making a final decision,

please read the Plan’s Federal brochure (RI 73-906). All Benefits are subject to the definitions, limitations,

and exclusions set forth in the Federalbrochure.

©2019 Aetna Inc.

GRP_4002_2408a_M 10/2019 19.12.325.1

Aetna Medicare Advantage

plan for federal retirees

Extra coverage.Low health premiums.

New