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All three networks mentioned the troubles at Southwest Airlines but only ABC had a correspondent cover them. Lisa Stark (embargoed link) told us that the airline allowed 46 old Boeing 737s to make 60,000 flights over nine months without undergoing mandatory inspections. When it eventually checked for metal fatigue, six of the planes had cracks categorized as "significant." CBS, too, ran on airline story arising from the "bitter labor dispute between controlers and the FAA over staffing and pay," as Kelly Wallace put it. A rookie controler at a tower in Ohio set a Delta Airlines jetliner and a USAirways Express commuter flight on mistaken courses. The two planes managed to evade one another when cockpit collision alerts sounded. FAA minimum standards dictate that planes be separated by 1,000 feet vertically, five miles horizontally; for these two, the distances were 400 feet and three miles.
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