Southwest self-inflicted wounds get worse

So, now it’s alleged Southwest Airlines had rudder inspection issues on some planes, too, as well as failure to inspect for cracks.

That’s what James Oberstar’s House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee says it found.

Southwest is denying the rudder allegations, but, given how much crow the company has already had to eat this week on PR flak that turned out to be wrong or misleading, it should probably not claim to contest anything right now.

Oh, the 46 planes that Southwest didn’t inspect for fuselage cracks like it should have?

It flew 38 of them for a total of 1,451 flights, a decision that FAA officials characterized as flunking a basic safety test.

No shit.

But, Oberstar isn’t looking just at Southwest. He’s looking at the whole FAA system, including where the agency trusts airlines to do a lot of self-inspection.

However, the trust issue bounced back to Southwest, which, apparently, deliberately gamed the system.

And, at some point, beyond asking for an outside consultant, Southwest CEO Gary Kelly is going to have to make some sort of corporate apology. And, probably sooner would be better. If he doesn’t get that, I wonder how much Southwest’s board is going to lean on him.