A Safety Fight at the FAA

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The quality and experience of the FAA auditors were also questioned by the airlines. One examiner did not know how to define two parts of basic airline operations; another reportedly asked what a speed brake on a jet is--a question that nearly rivals asking which end of the plane goes forward.

In private meetings with airline officials over the past few weeks, FAA regulators have acknowledged that the audits had flaws and that mistakes were made. But the agency isn't backing down. "I understand that no one likes to be inspected," says Lacey, "and they may not like our findings. But I think airlines would agree that their safety programs are stronger today than before."

No thanks to you is the industry's sentiment, says Michael Wascom, spokesman for the Air Transport Association, the airline lobby based in Washington. In a statement to TIME, Wascom said, "A plan to release incomplete materials purporting to assess carrier performance against a nonspecific standard, before the carriers are allowed to fully respond to these issues, is fraught with difficulty for both the FAA and the industry." The FAA has taken no enforcement actions against any carrier for any violation.

The FAA has missed at least two informal deadlines for releasing the results because it is busy responding to airline complaints. The agency says what it has learned from the experience will change the way it will conduct future audits.

That might not be enough for the airlines, which, faced with any more poorly designed reviews from Washington, will be less cooperative with future safety efforts. For some, the Alaska-inspired audits may have poisoned the safety well. "Honestly, I don't trust them anymore," says a former FAA official. "The FAA has put the industry back into a defensive crouch."