Thanks to the employees that had to go against their supervisors to report these inconvient truths.  Mostly, whistleblowers are treated shamefully.  They are treated like the bad guys while the problems that they reveal continue to plague us, while their superiors continue to reap bonuses and profits.

The airlines are not alone in their failures to adhere to the FAA’s safety standards.  What about the managers at the FAA who failed to enforce safety rules, not just the immediate managers but the ones up the line that applied pressure on behalf of the airlines.  They should be removed from their positions of authority for their failures of trust.

Who are the watchdogs of the FAA??  What were their failures??

These Incs either Hide behind old Gov’t agency Names or they make up their own (’Federal Reserve’- the Grand daddy of ‘independent Contractors)
Why do we pay these agencies- let’s cut out the middle man (facade) and get right to those who have been actually providing the ‘services’ . FAA- run by Airlines, FCC run by Corp Media, Health & Human services- Insurance & Pharm’s) Dept of Defense- Lockheed, Blackwater…
Thsi is NOT Teh Free market - it is Not Capitalism, It’s Corporationism. When discussing ‘god damn America’ it’s the Incs. When discussing AmericaNs it’s US.9/11 was an attack on America Inc, nothing else. It is those INCs who placed Our citizens in Harms way- Human Shields. they knew We would mistakenly believe WE had been attacked Not place the responsiblity on the Inc’s whos Unethical Global Business Practices which insited these acts.Jus tthink aobut the targets, they were after Them Not US.

^ America, the infrastructure cannot be maintained.  Consequently, the country is falling apart.  The media concentrates on the “MONEY”, but like most distractions, this isn’t what’s really going on.  The cost of Iraq is far more than the dollars borrowed and spent; it goes literally to the heart of this country and everything that is being squandered in the name of the global war against terrorism.  The rich don’t have to worry because they can cover the cost of anything that may befall them:  So this is theft on the grandest scale of all; the very theft of the greatest prize in the world……America’s vast wealth.  Our wealth; so, what are you going to do about it?

The title is misleading. The same thing that happened to these folks for ‘blowing the whistle’ is the same fate that awaits any other member of the FAA OR any given individual airline employee, who chooses to ‘blow the whistle’ on anything of any relevance to aviation safety.

It’s been that way for years, and one can never tell who ‘the enemy’ is, in choosing to ‘blow the whistle’.

For now, it’s Southwest in the hotseat, since the names of the other airlines, (long guilty of the same) have not been released.

I should also add that the ‘timing’ of these massive groundings of various portions of airline fleets, ostensibly for repair and maintenance checks, is suspect.

In addition to Southwest, Northwest, American, and United Airlines have also done major flight cancellations in recent days, in order to supposedly meet this FAA mandate. Personally, I don’t believe that the mandate required that they accomplish all of these checks in such a narrow window, when they could have been accomplished over a period of time, within the scheduled maintenance already allocated.

However, it’s been noted that in the midst of these numerous cancellations the airlines WERE able to accommodate 97% of the passengers affected by rerouting them on other flights, (on the SAME airline) and/or other carriers.

The result means that the cancellation of literally hundreds of flights saved these airlines MILLIONS of dollars in operating costs, (fuel, labor, etc) and they were still able to collect the revenue.

Still, the whistle blowers are probably standing in the foodstamp line.