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In a new report released by the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, the finger was pointed at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) after “significant examples of lapses in oversight of the safety of the Aviation and Failed Leadership in the FAA “.
The US Senate committee began its investigation into FAA oversight in April 2019. Investigators found “several significant examples of lapses in aviation security oversight and failed leadership at the FAA,” according to the chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Roger Wickers. Wickers said it was “clear” that the agency required oversight to ensure the safety of the flying public.
From the 102-page report, the committee identified six key findings that outlined glaring problems with the FAA and its safety oversight processes, including issues unrelated to the Boeing 737 MAX.
Boeing interferes with 737 MAX recertification
According to the senators’ report, Boeing interfered not only with the initial certification of the Boeing 737 MAX, but also with the recertification of the aircraft type, which has occurred recently.
“At least one recertification test was even unduly influenced by Boeing,” the document noted, noting that at least one FAA aircraft certification test pilot was complicit in the test, according to a whistleblower account. The complainant alleged that Boeing representatives told the test pilots to “remember, flip that switch,” prior to the test flights. That allowed a test pilot to react to the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) in four seconds, the reaction time assumed by Boeing and the FAA.
The same complainant, who was an FAA aviation safety inspector, conducted his own tests on a Boeing 737 NextGeneration (NG) simulator with three different flight crews. According to his account, when the three pilot crews were presented with “out-of-control stab adjustment” events, which tilted the nose of the aircraft up or down, they were able to react in seven, nine and eleven seconds, respectively. However, the 737 NG simulator does not include MCAS, which could have made the task easier for pilots.
“The complainant claims that the results of these tests indicate that Boeing’s assumed reaction time of four seconds is unrealistic. The scenario is aggravated by the inadequate training of the flight crews ”, the committee’s report concluded.
In a test on a Boeing 737 MAX simulator, an FAA pilot who also worked in an Aircraft Assessment Group (AEG), reacted to the MCAS firing in 16 seconds “or four times longer than the accepted assumption of four seconds. “.
“It appears, in this case, that the FAA and Boeing were trying to cover up important information that may have contributed to the 737 MAX tragedies.”
Obstruct investigation
On a separate note, the senators also pointed to the fact that the FAA was not very helpful in the investigation, to say the least.
To conduct the investigation, the senators conducted interviews with FAA employees and asked the agency to provide a series of documents for their review. The committee chairman sent several letters to the FAA, containing more than 30 specific requests. Only half of them were answered, the report noted, in addition to the agency documents that were released “at times appeared contradictory and misleading.”
The FAA allowed the committee to interview nine employees during the investigation period. Three of them left the FAA before they could be interviewed. Furthermore, “the interviews carried out produced inconsistencies, contradictions and, in one case, a possible lack of frankness.” Still, the evidence strongly supported the complainants’ allegations, the report noted.
Supervisory lapses
The report has also identified oversight failures within the FAA that have resulted in “a failed FAA safety management culture.”
For example, Southwest Airlines (LUV) was allowed “to continue operating dozens of aircraft under unknown airworthiness conditions for several years,” putting “millions of passengers at risk.” At the forefront of the accusations were 88 planes that the low-cost airline bought second-hand between 2013 and 2017. The Boeing 737s were allegedly operated with certificates of airworthiness that were based on poor information. The director of the FAA’s Office of Audit and Evaluation (AAE), H. Clayton Foushee, urged the agency’s administrator, Stephen Dickson, to ground the uninspected aircraft, to which Dickson refused to do so. Instead, it granted an extension of the deadline for Southwest to complete the inspections, despite the fact that the inspections should have been completed “before the aircraft flew into United States airspace.”
“Southwest Airlines (LUV) successfully exerts undue influence on the FAA to obtain favorable treatment related to regulatory compliance and voluntary reporting programs,” the report concluded.
“Our findings are concerning,” concluded Roger Wicker, chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation that conducted the research.
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