What Are Similarities Of Two Southwest Airlines Incidents?

Similarities of Two Southwest Airlines Incidents. Two more similar incidents occurred in 2009 and 2011 to two Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-300 aircrafts. The fuselage ruptured in the similar areas due to corrosion and lap joint issues, but at a far lesser severity than that of Aloha Airlines Flight 243. The incidents occurred to Southwest Flight 2294 on July 13, 2009 and to Southwest Flight 812 on April 1, 2011, where both aircrafts made emergency landings safely with no injuries (Irving, 2011).

Southwest Flight 2294 was on a scheduled flight from Nashville to Baltimore and was cruising at about FL350, when a hole as large as a football appeared in the roof with a loud pop (Irving, 2011). Southwest Flight 812 was on a scheduled flight from
Secondly, the FAA should collaborate with the ICAO and create an international awards program for aircraft maintenance organizations, where Part 121 and Part 145 maintenance organizations around the world are given ratings annually based on their safety performance and mishap levels. The top ten safest maintenance organizations with lowest mishap levels should be given an award for their good performance, with a portion of the BBC world news dedicated to naming these organizations, which helps bring up their reputations.

The motive of such a program is to encourage maintenance organizations to improve their safety practices through receiving a prestigious award. Many organizations often place a greater emphasis on profits rather than safety, as they view spending on safety as an expense rather than an investment. Often, budget cuts are done on a regular basis along with organizational restructuring, where the size of the work force is reduced. With smaller budgets and work force, work gets overbearing, and mechanics who are under high stress, management pressure, and time constraints would be more likely to commit errors and violations that ultimately lead to
The FAA currently relies on airlines, and maintenance subcontractors themselves to ensure repairs meet the safety requirements of the airlines (CbsNews, 2008). Furthermore, annual government inspections required by the FAA are often not conducted by agency inspectors of particular countries who are familiar with the standards and requirements of the airlines (CbsNews, 2008).

Reliance on the airlines and maintenance subcontractors for oversight is not an effective method for ensuring safety, as the reports submitted to the FAA could be biased, and omit certain information that are in essence safety deficiencies. Thus, the FAA needs more government funding, so that it will have the capability to collaborate with foreign authorities to conduct its own oversight.

Conclusion
This capstone project listed some of the human factors causes of maintenance errors. Human factors such as stress, organizational or management pressures, lack of situational awareness, distraction, and lack of teamwork (Sian, Robertson, & Watson, n.d.), are some of the points that directly influence human performance and maintenance errors. Although human factors causes of maintenance errors have largely been eliminated through the use of MRM and human factors programs, bad organizational management or policies will still cause maintenance errors (Drury,