This is the text from a CBS 2 Special Assignment
May 12, 2003 4:02 pm US/Pacific

(KCBS) In this CBS 2 Special Assignment, investigative reporter Drew Griffin looks at a crippled airline industry struggling to survive, and a growing trend that one whistleblower says is putting safety at risk.

The charges come from a former United mechanic, fired from his job, he says, after he voiced his concerns about what his airline was doing. That airline -- United -- is one of this nation's and the world's safest airlines, and calls the whistleblower a disgruntled ex-employee who is flat-out wrong. But if Tim Hafer is right, there is a danger in the air that no one has told you about.

Special Assignment: "Unsafe Skies" originally aired Monday, May 12, 2003 at 11 p.m.

He was a mechanic for United for eight years, responsible for the constant attention these multimillion-dollar machines require to stay safe.

"And I got to see the dirty laundry so to speak," Tim Hafer says.

And the dirty laundry that bothered Tim Hafer was a process called "outsourcing." United Airlines, like other airlines, has been firing its own mechanics and sending an increasing amount of its maintenance and repair work to subcontractors.

Drew Griffin: "You say it turns into a lower quality of maintenance?"

Hafer: "Yeah."

The problem, says Hafer, is that federal regulations allow subcontractors to hire unlicensed mechanics.

"They can get cheap labor and bring them in and as long as a certified person signs off on the work it's okay," Hafer says.

But when an airline sends its maintenance outside the company, Hafer claims, the airline loses control. And in the case of United, he says his own documents show an airline that has lost control of its approval process, of its mechanics, of its safety.

Hank Krakowski is United's vice president and chief safety officer. And as you will hear, he flatly rejects any argument that outsourcing jeopardizes safety.

"No, we don’t believe at all that our airplanes are out of our control," Krakowski says.

But internal United records uncovered by Special Assignment seem to show a different story -- a story Hafer says began in November of 2000, when United sent its entire fleet of 727s to a contractor in North Carolina -- the aviation maintenance company named TIMCO.

The contract called for electrical breakers inside each plane to be overhauled.

On United’s approval, TIMCO sent the work to yet another subcontractor.

The work was never done. Instead of overhauling the breakers, TIMCO’s subcontractor did something else.

Hafer: "They just cleaned them up and made them look shiny and put them back on the plane."

Griffin: "That’s borderline criminal."

Hafer: "Oh it's criminal. You have seven potential firebombs on those planes."

Griffin: "How long did the planes fly?"

Hafer: "They flew around for about three of four months."

Krakowski: "We pulled them out of all the planes immediately, we quarantined the parts, there's an FAA investigation going on as we speak."

Griffin: "In context of the oversight of these planes, and losing control of these planes, what happened where the oversight did not work, because clearly it did not?"

Krakowski: "Yea it surprised us too and I have to tell you it’s an unacceptable issue."

But less than a year later, United was surprised again by outsourcing work here at TIMCO.

A United 737, with parts of its fuel system missing, was signed off by TIMCO and allowed to fly.

The plane flew an estimated 17 flights before anyone spotted the trouble. The FAA found out about it, and fined United $33,000. And those two incidents were only the beginning.

Combing through United's computer records of other outsourced maintenance and repair work, Hafer found something missing.

The names of the mechanics that approved the work, the final inspectors, were not there, on job, after job.

Hafer: "Autopilot checks ... flap repairs, flight control repairs."

Who was giving the final computer sign-off for the outsource work? They turned out to be United office workers and secretaries.

Griffin: "So in terms of United, the quality control of maintenance ends with the secretary signing?"

Hafer: "In that situation, yeah."

Griffin: "You're describing a very thin line between a safe flight and a disaster."

Hafer: "Oh yeah. It's kinda like playing lottery in reverse. The other way around. You’re buying a ticket and you never know if you have that unlucky ticket."

Griffin: "This disgruntled employee is saying you guys have secretaries signing off on this work."

Krakowski: "Absolutely false, absolutely false."

All the work, Krakowski says, was inspected and approved by a qualified mechanic according to FAA regulations.

But that's not what the FAA found when it looked into Hafer's charges. In a letter to United, the FAA says it found "disparities" in the airline record keeping that violated federal regulations. And final work reports were filed by unqualified people.

Krakowski: "When the FAA brought this to our attention two years ago, we took action, we corrected it, that problem no longer exists. And in fact we got a letter from the FAA congratulating us on our responsiveness to that issue.

Mary Schiavo is the former Inspector General of the Department of Transportation and a vocal critic of the trend in the airline business to cut costs by outsourcing.

"Second only to security issues, outsourcing is the biggest problem facing the aviation industry today because it represents several problems coming to a head," Schiavo says. "I saw it in the ValuJet tragedy. We are now seeing it in the US Airlines and Air Midwest crash from just this past January."

Schiavo: "The more you outsource the more you lose control over your safety and quality."

United doesn't believe it. And in fact, like other airlines, is looking to increase the amount of maintenance work it sends outside the company, even hoping to send work overseas.

"Its cheaper, maintains good quality, so as a competitive issue we as a company are forced to look at every way to save money as well."

Griffin: "What would you say to people who fly today?"

Hafer: "Be very careful."

Since Hafer left United there have been several more suspected cases of shoddy repairs done by United’s subcontractors.

Just this past November, a United Aerbus landed with its nose gear wheels turned at a 90-degree angle. The gear had just been overhauled at a United outsourcing contractor. The NTSB has launched yet another investigation. 

(MMIII, Viacom Internet Services Inc., All Rights Reserved)

This is the text from a CBS 2 Special Assignment
Jun 3, 2003 8:00 pm US/Pacific

(KCBS) Our report last week exposing holes in airline maintenance is getting attention now in Washington. The report showed how airlines are saving money firing their own licensed mechanics, and instead hiring subcontractors who can do the maintenance and repair work for cheaper.

We were shocked to learn that airlines aren't the only ones subcontracting work. The FAA is also saving money, subcontracting the very inspection work that is supposed to keep air travel safe. Drew Griffin has the story.

Special Assignment: "Unsafe Skies Follow-Up" aired Monday, June 3, 2003 at 11 p.m.

United Airlines wants to increase the amount of work subcontractors do on its planes. It's called outsourcing, and for troubled airlines like United, firing your own mechanics and sending the work out is a great way to save money.

Hank Krakowski, United's Chief Safety Officer: "They do outsourcing all the time. It's cheaper. Maintains good quality."

But that’s not what we found examining United's own records.

In just two examples of shoddy maintenance by subcontractors, the airline failed to detect a plane with parts of its fuel line missing, until that plane had already flown 17 flights without it.

And it also failed to notice for months a subcontractor's failure to perform routine maintenance on United’' entire fleet of 727s.

Krakoski: "There’s an FAA investigation that's going on as we speak."

And United record keeping of outsourced maintenance was so questionable, the former inspector general of the Department of Transportation says there's no way you could tell if the work had even been done -- which could lead to grounding the airplanes.

United says it has since cleared up its record keeping of outsourced maintenance and is more closely watching its subcontractors.

But we wanted to know why the FAA wasn't able to catch the same errors in the first place.

After all, it is the mission of the FAA to make sure those who inspect and maintain commercial airliners do their jobs properly.

Linda Goodrich is an FAA inspector and vice president of the FAA employees union.

"We have limited resources. It's impossible for us to be at those outlying facilities."

She says cost-cutting outsourcing isn't just a trend in the airline business, it's a trend in the FAA. The Federal Aviation Administration is cutting costs by subcontracting its inspection work. And she says, just like the airlines the agency is loosing control.

"The strain on the system is thinning that safety buffer," Goodrich says.

And safety is suffering. Faulty outsource inspections by the FAA have been linked to the crash of a Swissair flight, a ValuJet plane in Florida, and the Alaska Airline flight off the coast of Oxnard.

It had its maintenance work signed off by a freelance FAA inspector.

We wanted to ask the FAA why it is outsourcing its own inspections. We were told the practice is under investigation. In fact it is part of the investigation into why this crash took place.

On Jan. 8, a U.S. Airways Express flight crashed and burned on take off in North Carolina. The plane's flight controls had just been worked on by a third party maintenance subcontractor, over which the FAA had little or no oversight.

Mary Schiavo, former inspector general at the Department of

Transportation is a major critic of airlines cost cutting by outsourcing maintenance.

"I think with so many carriers in financial difficulty looking for ways to cut corners, its difficult for the inspectors to keep up."

The fear is more accidents. But there is also a growing fear of something else -- terrorism.

That’s because airlines are sending more and more of their outsource work overseas where there is little FAA oversight of the work or those who are working on the planes.

Goodrich: "It makes it almost impossible for the inspector to reach out and observe what work is being done."

And even if the inspection is done here at home, if it’s done by a freelance FAA inspector, that can prove deadly as well.

On Sept. 11, American Airlines flight 77, which smashed into the Pentagon, was believed to have been piloted by terrorist Hani Hanjour. And before that fateful day, no one from the FAA knew anything about him, because Hanjour earned his flight training and his flight training certificate from an FAA subcontractor.

(MMIII, Viacom Internet Services Inc., All Rights Reserved)

Also view the CBS follow up report,  FAA Criticized.