Arguing that management has ignored safety concerns, a union representing most US Airways pilots called Monday for the ouster of the company's vice president in charge of safety.

US Airways is in the midst of protracted, acrimonious contract talks with its pilots. An airline spokeswoman called the union's demand "an unfortunate negotiating tactic" and said recent independent audits and incident records show the airline is safe.

"You cannot base the safety culture of an airline purely on an airline's record," said James Ray, a spokesman for the Charlotte-based US Airways Pilots Association.

Tempe, Ariz.-based US Airways operates about 90 percent of the daily flights from Charlotte/Douglas International Airport. Nearly 6,800 employees are based here.

USAPA says management hasn't responded adequately to recent problems, including fuselage cracks in an older Southwest 737 and a bullet hole discovered in March in a US Airways plane at Charlotte.

The airline said its 737s didn't need further safety inspections, and were undergoing inspections similar to FAA-mandated checks in the wake of the Southwest cracks. The FBI has said it is investigating the bullet hole.

A survey of 1,560 pilots, obtained by the Observer earlier this year, found many pilots thought there was an inadequate response to safety concerns, the push for on-time departures may hinder safety and that safety personnel were viewed as "out of touch with the risks of flight operations."

US Airways contends that the voluntary survey, which was commissioned by USAPA, was not a representative sample of the pilots. The union insists it was.

The airline's vice president in charge of safety is Paul Morrell, a 42-year aviation veteran and former naval and commercial pilot. "We support him completely, and the union's calls for his resignation are baseless," US Airways spokeswoman Michelle Mohr said.

Mohr said that USAPA's criticism "a disservice to the 32,000 employees working every day to make sure that our airline is safe."

Last year, the airline had 24 documented incidents out of about 1.1 million flights, a U.S. News & World Report study found. That was third-fewest out of the eight biggest U.S. carriers. Last year, US Airways said it posted all-time lows in navigation errors, erratic landing approaches and cases in which planes nearly collide on runways.

Also, Mohr said, unreleased preliminary results from a safety audit conducted by the trade group International Air Transport Association showed US Airways passed "with flying colors."

The pilots union says that the airline is safe to fly - but only because of the pilots' hard work to ensure that. A culture of safety is missing, the pilots are frozen out of safety issues and nothing is communicated to them about safety issues, Ray said.

USAPA took a hard line, insisting Morrell's removal is the only acceptable solution to a corporate culture that they say doesn't value safety.

"Any other action by the Company will be viewed by USAPA as insufficient and a direct threat to the safety of the pilots and passengers on US Airways," the union wrote.

Ray denied that the pilots had anything to gain at the negotiating table from criticizing the airline's safety record. Instead, he said, the union has become so concerned that pilots are being shut out of the airline's safety programs and being pressured to take off on time that they think only a change at the top will help.

"It's dead silent coming out of the VP's office," Ray said, complaining about the lack of guidance on safety issues pilots get. "There need to be daily conversations between the VP of safety and the pilot's safety committee."

US Airways, he said, also elevates on-time departures above safety concerns about planes.

US Airways does have procedures, including a safety hotline, for pilots to report any problems, which Mohr said keep an open line of communication directly with active pilots. Ray said complaints lodged through those channels are not acted upon.

After years of turmoil and financial losses, US Airways managed to regain some stability last year, chalking up a profit of nearly $450 million and improving in a key customer satisfaction ranking. US Airways posted a $110 million loss in the first quarter this fiscal year due to rising fuel costs - a quarter when the industry as a whole lost over $1 billion.

Pilot negotiations have been the unresolved question mark hovering over US Airways for more than five years, since a 2005 merger with America West saved the company from bankruptcy.

A dispute over seniority, which determines things such as what routes and planes pilots fly, has prevented unions of the two companies from merging.