NEWS 8 EXCLUSIVE

DALLAS — Experts admit that spot checks and ramp inspections are often the best way to make sure an airliner is safe to fly. So you would think the FAA makes them a priority.

Think again.

News 8 examined an FAA database that revealed federal inspectors only conducted 99 ramp and spot checks at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport in the last year. Of those inspections, 22 of them were American Airlines planes.

That number shocked Denny Kelly, an aviation expert and former commercial airline pilot.

“That's absurd," he said of the number.

Kelly said while FAA inspectors have other tasks they are required to accomplish, he said he thinks the minimum number of inspections should be one every week per inspector.

"People that I have known well that have done this kind of thing say that you could easily do three a day," he said.

When News 8 contacted the FAA with the discovery, a spokesperson expressed surprise. He said the government’s own numbers seemed unusually low.

"The FAA needs to be the watchdogs of the aviation industry [and] they are not,” said Joe Gutheinz, a risk management teacher and aviation attorney who used to be a U.S. Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General special agent. “They see themselves as the partners of the aviation industry."

But the FAA pointed out that it did hundreds of other types of inspections on American Airlines at D/FW last year, 1,700 to be exact. Many of the inspections were very comprehensive. Despite that, experts said spot checks and ramp inspections were important because they are unannounced.

The Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, the union representing FAA inspectors, said ramp and spot inspections are general and are just not done very much anymore.

Instead, the union said the FAA focuses on inspecting specific things like the wiring compliance issue discovered on American Airlines’ MD-80s last month.

More specific inspections, the FAA said, is better. It gives a complete snapshot of an airline's entire safety system, a spokesperson said.

But, as a result those types of specific inspections also keep FAA inspectors in the office for 70 percent of their day, processing paperwork and leaving little time actually with airplanes, said Linda Goodrich, a professional aviation safety specialists vice president.

The FAA has undergone scrutiny since whistleblowers revealed lax oversight at Southwest Airlines in March.

FAA inspectors are reportedly in the middle of catching up on 19 overdue reviews of American Airlines’ processes and paperwork.

Now, critics say the FAA's own data illustrates it has more to do.

E-mail jwhitely@wfaa.com