After Southwest was forced to ground dozens of its Boeing 737 aircraft due to a lack of proper inspection, it issued an apology to its customers and may be facing a record $10.2 million fine from the FAA.

But what about the core question, which is, were passengers knowingly put into a dangerous position?

Pilot Patrick Smith explains that the airline failed to inspect the aircraft for something called “fuselage fatigue,” which is mandated for 737s. The mandate came from 1988 Aloha Airlines incident, in which an 18-foot section of the cabin peeled away in-flight, killing a flight attendant.

Southwest failed to follow the schedule as developed by Boeing and the FAA. Even after the lapse was discovered, Southwest allowed several of the jets to continue flying, despite the fact that six of them were known to have fatigue cracks. Because Southwest specializes in frequent short-haul flights, its fleet has a higher risk of developing fatigue problems.

While the airline’s behavior may be “reckless and indefensible,” said Smith, things aren’t necessarily as bad as they seem.

Smith asks the question, “Would I, as an airline pilot, agree to fly an airplane with a known fatigue crack? The answer is maybe.” He admits that if a technician could justify that a fatigue crack was not a dire matter, then he would fly the plane.

In fact, he points out that jetliners are “routinely dispatched with inoperative or malfunctioning components.”

But, when combined with Southwest’s knowing violation of a regulated inspection, he would not fly that same plane. “And that, it appears, is where Southwest went over the line,” said Smith.

In a Washington Post article, Robert Francis, a former vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, stated “Should passengers, regulators and Congress be concerned? Sure. But does it mean the system is less safe? I don’t think you can say that.”

According to Francis, Southwest’s breach of protocol may have made flying the planes “very, very, very marginally less safe, but safety redundancies are enormous.” The likelihood of a Southwest crash is “way, way, way out there on the probability scale.”

Smith points out that the scandal has fueled criticism that the FAA and the airlines it oversees often have a “cozy relationship,” which may explain why the violations were not caught earlier. According to Smith, “for the system to function properly that relationship needs to be a close one.”

Critics, however, have accused the FAA and Southwest of falsifying safety reports, according to recent reports from Wired. The U.S. House Committee is still investigating claims made by two FAA whistleblowers who were the ones to point out the “cozy relationship” between the FAA and Southwest after a former FAA inspector went to work for the airline.

The whistleblowers claimed that FAA colleagues who were responsible for overseeing Southwest didn’t act on information that the airline had failed to conduct safety inspections, and that an internal FAA investigation was leaked to Southwest. The FAA has placed three employees on administrative leave while it investigates the allegations.

Related Links: Salon.com, Hartford Courant, Wired, Washington Post

Want to see other recent Travel News Roundups? Click here.

Or, check out more travel news you can use in our main Travel News section.

Looking for even more in-depth news coverage of the week’s top stories? Visit our Travel News Analysis Category.