It was bad enough when the flying public recently learned that required airplane inspections were routinely being skirted. Now comes word that air-traffic controllers in Texas have been hiding their errors — a problem that supposedly had been detected, and corrected, once before.

Late last month, the Federal Aviation Administration said it had removed two managers from air-traffic control duties in Dallas-Forth Worth. A whistle-blower had revealed that safety violations by controllers were being reported as pilot errors. Dozens of times from late 2005 through last summer, controllers let planes fly closer together than allowed, and then blamed the pilots. The whistle-blower in the case, controller supervisor Anne Whiteman, had reported similar episodes in 2004. The FAA had pledged then to fix the problem but obviously failed.

It gets worse. Responding to questions from a recent Senate hearing, the agency disclosed that it had failed to conduct more than 100 recommended reviews of airline-safety systems in recent years. The check-ups, overdue at eight major airlines, look at several varieties of systems (de-icing, for instance, or crew training) to detect potential weaknesses. The reviews are part of an FAA effort that emerged about a decade ago in the wake of several crashes.

Air-safety experts say that none of this means passengers are in imminent danger; for evidence, they point to airlines’ recent record, which has been excellent. Yet it is clear that the FAA has grown complacent, and way too cozy with the industry it regulates. One result is that it is doing too little to address emerging safety issues, such as potential ground collisions at increasingly busy airports, and dangers posed by fuel-tank explosions.

A growing sense that many federal agencies are failing in their regulatory missions will make it difficult for the public to trust the FAA. If the government cannot keep poisonous toys out of children’s hands, or tainted drugs out of patients’ bloodstreams, or contaminated spinach out of the food supply, how can it ensure that flying is safe?

It is true that the airline industry, like others, has a powerful interest in policing itself. A crash can financially destroy an airline. But competition inevitably leads some companies to cut corners. The FAA must be strong enough to discourage that temptation. Congress should do what it can to reform the agency’s culture. The time also has arrived to review other aspects of airline oversight that have developed since “deregulation” (a bit of a misnomer) started in the late ’70s.