Over this past holiday weekend, there were two medical teams in two helicopters that were rushing victims to nearby hospitals somewhere around Flagstaff, Arizona. The helicopters were in route when they crashed into each other losing all control and falling to the ground. There was debris flying everywhere during the time of the crash. If the crash had been any closer to the city, there might have been damage to the nearby neighborhood. During the crash, 6 different people were killed by the time that the police arrived on the scene.

Both pilots, the two patients, a paramedic, and a flight nurse were the ones killed instantly in the crash. The remaining flight nurse was in critical condition and died shortly after arriving at the hospital.

There is an investigation that is currently taking place looking into the causes of the accident. There is no word yet officially on the accident and will become public as soon as police have new information.

In March, it was revealed that the FAA had skipped a few reviews for Southwest Airlines that needed to be completed. It has just been revealed that these were not the only reviews for airline companies that were missed.

Some of the reviews should have been completed over nine years ago and have yet to be done. American Airlines has 26 missed reviews, United Airlines has 15 missed reviews, and Alaska Airlines has 13 missed reviews. Southwest Airlines, Delta Airlines, Continental Airlines, and Northwest Airlines all have somewhat smaller numbers of missed reviews from FAA. It wasn’t until after a senate meeting that all of this new information was revealed and brought to the table.

Sources say that just because there are missed reviews, doesn’t mean that there is danger flying with any of these companies. FAA is saying that they will try to catch up on all reviews as soon as they can get the man power to take care of all of it.

Dallas, Texas based Southwest Airlines flew thousands of passengers on planes that were deemed unsafe by the Federal Aviation Administration. 

Documents submitted to Congress by the FAA detailed that 117 of the company's planes flew while they were in violation of mandatory safety checks. In some instances, the planes flew up to 30 months after the government inspection deadlines had passed. The planes should have been grounded until the inspections could be completed. According to federal air safety inspectors, these planes were not "air worthy."

On Thursday, the FAA started the process to obtain a $10.2 million fine for not inspecting 46 planes for fuselage cracks. They are taking this action in order to punish Southwest Airlines for failing to follow rules that are designed to protect passengers and crew from air accidents.

Congressmen are calling this violation one of the worst ever and are planning on opening hearings as soon as possible to determine why the airline put its passengers and crew at risk.

In addition to Southwest apparently knowing the planes were flying unsafely, it appears that some FAA officials also knew the planes were flying when they were not airworthy and did nothing to ground the planes until inspections could be completed. Both FAA managers and the airline may also have broken the law as well as threatened the safety of Southwest's passengers.

The two individuals who prepared the documents and turned them over to Congress have requested whistle blower status. The "Whistle-Blower Protection Program" protects federal employees from being fired or retaliated against by their employer when they blow the whistle on unlawful actions.

The unsafe planes flew nearly 60,000 flights while they were uninspected.