The latest safety problem affecting Pratt & Whitney’s geared turbofan engines highlights the FAA’s lack of resolve confronting persistent safety challenges.

The engine troubles, following durability issues that have plagued the model for years, have sparked serious concerns among airline executives worldwide because hundreds of popular single-aisle Airbus A320neo jets face accelerated engine inspections, and some may need emergency part replacements soon. Certain carriers are girding for financial heartburn and painful schedule disruptions.

What hasn’t received enough attention, however, is the FAA’s initial limp response to these long-simmering challenges. More scrutiny also is warranted to examine its ambivalence combating a broad range of hazards, including overreliance on cockpit automation and little-known short-comings analyzing commuter and charter incidents.

The FAA had a distinctly passive reaction to heightened dangers posed by a rare but potentially catastrophic engine manufacturing defect. Pratt started to uncover the new hazards last winter but did not reveal them publicly until summer. In its surprise July disclosure, the company warned that contaminated powder metal used in certain turbine disks required stepped-up checks of many more geared turbofan engines than previously anticipated.

Before that announcement, FAA officials quietly weighed forceful moves, from ordering immediate ultrasound inspections for a segment of the fleet to temporarily grounding some jets, according to industry officials not authorized to comment publicly. But company executives pushed back hard, citing negative economic and public relations fallout.

The FAA opted against mandates, foregoing an immediate airworthiness directive—the way U.S. regulators typically handle the most pressing unsafe conditions.

Instead, FAA officials permitted Pratt to take the lead with its own voluntary inspections, despite a pattern of mistaken company predictions regarding failure modes on other engines. The agency effectively ceded control of messaging about the extent of hazards, prompting news reports that downplayed the latest dangers and used the term “recall,” usually frowned on in aviation settings. 

It took another month for a high-priority FAA directive to spell out the additional risks. Without waiting for typical public comment, the FAA mandated a late-September deadline for initial inspections. Following a series of more limited mandatory directives covering geared turbofan engines, the FAA ultimately acknowledged internal cracks could emerge faster than projected, potentially causing “damage to the engine, damage to the airplane and loss of the airplane.” 

The longer inspections take, the August document said, “the higher the probability of failure.” An FAA spokesman didn’t elaborate on the timing of the directive’s release. Over the years, the agency decided against strong and rapid action in other areas:

• Years of bureaucratic disagreements delayed definitive guidance recommending that airline crews perform substantially more manual flying to reverse excessive pilot dependence on automation. It wasn’t until last fall that the FAA formally urged pilots to sometimes hand-fly “entire departure and arrival routes” or “potentially the entire flight.”
• Agency leaders also have been reluctant to revamp some voluntary incident reporting efforts. Those programs have been immensely successful at alleviating risks pertaining to major carriers. But former FAA officials and other critics describe how agency staff shortages and reorganizations can impede effective data sharing by regional carriers and charter operators.
• Long before the recent flurry of high-profile runway incidents, outside safety experts urged tougher action to curb spikes in midair close calls around hubs. Yielding to industry pressure, for example, the FAA over roughly a decade routinely allowed pilots to turn off critical airborne collision-avoidance warnings during specified approaches to Denver International Airport. That increased capacity on selected runways, but a drumbeat of incidents finally soured the FAA on the practice. Last August, it publicly warned of significant risks if pilots forget to turn the traffic collision avoidance warnings back on after a missed approach.

The last 18 months featured a revolving door of acting agency administrators and other interim policymakers. These officials often lacked standing to take decisive action. President Joe Biden’s latest nominee for agency chief, former FAA Deputy Administrator Michael Whitaker, was delayed by wrangling with labor.

Despite FAA missteps, industry has maintained a phenomenal safety record. Since 2009, scheduled U.S. passenger airlines have carried the equivalent of the entire world’s population—without a single fatal jetliner crash.

Lately, the FAA emphasizes that even one close call is too many. Considering Pratt’s engine woes, the agency has fallen short of that vaunted standard. 

Andy Pasztor, a former aviation reporter for The Wall Street Journal, is working on a book about the history of flight safety.

RTX, which initially declined to comment after Pastzor's inquiry, responds: In reference to the claim that we “pushed back hard” on FAA action, this is absolutely false. We informed the FAA immediately after determining the need to accelerate inspection schedules, and there was never any discussion between Pratt & Whitney/RTX and the FAA regarding a different timeline. This was confirmed by the FAA’s latest Airworthiness Directive, which established a Sept. 22 return date for impacted engines.