Alaska Airlines Agrees to $300,000 Fine : FAA Alleges Pilot Training, Weapons Screening Rule Violations

Alaska Airlines has agreed to pay a $300,000 fine to settle alleged violations of federal aviation regulations ranging from pilot training to passenger screening, the Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday.

The substantial civil fine against the nation’s 20th largest airline is the second major penalty levied by the FAA against an airline this year. Two months ago, American Airlines agreed to pay an unprecedented $1.5-million fine for maintenance violations.

The agency said it based the Alaska Airlines fine primarily on allegations that a number of pilots had not received the necessary annual ground training on emergency procedures and the handling of dangerous articles and hazardous materials.

Lou Cancelmi, spokesman for Alaska Airlines at its Seattle headquarters, said that all outstanding enforcement cases against the airline now are settled. “It clears the deck between us and the FAA, and we can now get on about our business,” he said.

Higher Fine Proposed

Cancelmi stressed that, although the company agreed to the settlement to avoid more costly and time consuming litigation, “it does not represent an admission of liability on our part.” The FAA initially proposed a $600,775 fine before negotiations with the airline began.

Alaska Airlines, the dominant carrier in Alaska with 37 jet aircraft, serves 14 communities in Alaska and 16 cities in six other states, including Los Angeles and San Francisco. The airline carried 2.5 million passengers in 1984 on 55,000 flights.

Cancelmi said the bulk of the charges centered on FAA allegations that 90 of the airline’s 300 pilots had not undergone the required 25 hours of annual ground training.

“We’re convinced the training was completed,” Cancelmi said, adding that problem was one of inadequate record keeping. “We didn’t have the paper trail to prove these guys had their ground training,” he said.

The company subsequently found the records for more than 15 of the pilots, but the airline retrained the pilots anyway, Cancelmi said. It also switched from a manual to a computer record-keeping system, he added. The FAA noted in its announcement that the alleged training “deficiencies” have been corrected.

Screening for Weapons

The settlement also disposed of FAA allegations that Alaska Airlines sometimes failed to screen passengers for weapons. On one occasion, a passenger transferring in Seattle from one Alaska Airlines flight to another was found to be carrying a loaded firearm that he said he had with him on the first flight. On another, a woman found to have a firearm in her purse on a return flight from Spokane, Wash., to Seattle said the weapon had gone undetected on the initial flight several days earlier.

The fine also settled an FAA allegation that on several occasions, nose gear lock pins were not removed from aircraft before departure, preventing the pilot from retracting the landing gear and forcing the aircraft to return to the airport. “In no instance did it compromise the safety of passengers,” Cancelmi said.