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A committee of the US House of Representatives issued a scathing report Wednesday questioning whether Boeing and government regulators have recognized the problems that caused two deadly 737 Max aircraft crashes and whether any of them will be willing to make meaningful changes. to fix them.
Staff members of the Democratic-controlled Transportation Committee blamed the crashes that killed 346 people on the “terrible culmination” of failed government oversight, design flaws and inaction at Boeing despite knowing the problems.
The committee identified many shortcomings in the Federal Aviation Administration approval process for new aircraft. But both the agency and Boeing have said the Max’s certification complied with FAA regulations, according to the 246-page report.
“The fact that a compliant aircraft suffered two fatal accidents in less than five months is clear evidence that the current regulatory system is fundamentally flawed and in need of repair,” the staff wrote in the report released early Wednesday.
The report highlights the need for legislation to fix the approval process and address the FAA delegation of some oversight duties to employees of aircraft manufacturers, committee chair Peter DeFazio said.
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“Obviously the system is inadequate,” DeFazio said. “We will adopt major reforms.”
He did not elaborate on possible changes, saying committee leaders are in talks with Republicans about the legislation. He said the committee will not rule out the delegation program and hopes to reach an agreement on the reforms before the end of the year.
Elaine Thompson / AP
A committee of the US House of Representatives is questioning whether Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration have recognized the problems that caused two fatal 737 Max aircraft crashes and whether either organization will be willing to make significant changes to fix them. .
The Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday could make changes to a bipartisan bill introduced in June that gives the FAA more control over the selection of company employees who sign safety decisions. An improvement may be that a plane with significant changes from previous models would need further review by the FAA.
The House report stems from an 18-month investigation into the October 2018 crash of Lion Air Flight 610 in Indonesia and the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in March 2019. The Max was grounded throughout the world shortly after the accident in Ethiopia. Regulators are testing planes with revamped flight control software, and Boeing expects the Max to fly again later this year or early 2021.
The researchers focused primarily on why Boeing was able to get the plane approved with minimal pilot training: It convinced the FAA that the Max was an updated version of the previous-generation 737s.
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The Boeing 737 MAX MCAS software played a role in both crashes.
But in fact, Boeing equipped the plane with software called MCAS, an acronym for Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, which automatically lowers the nose of the plane to prevent an aerodynamic stall. Pilots around the world were initially not informed about the system, which Boeing said was necessary because the Max had larger, more powerful engines that were placed further forward on the wings than older 737s.
In both crashes, MCAS repeatedly pointed the nose downward, forcing the pilots into fruitless struggles to keep the planes aloft.
The committee’s investigators said they found several cases in which Boeing withheld information about MCAS from the FAA and airlines.
The Chicago-based company did not disclose that MCAS was powered by a single sensor called an “angle of attack,” which measures the pitch of an aircraft. It also failed to reveal that a meter that would have alerted pilots to a malfunctioning sensor was not working on the vast majority of aircraft.
Boeing also concealed that it took more than 10 seconds for a company test pilot to determine that MCAS was operating and respond to it, a condition the pilot deemed “catastrophic,” according to the report. Federal guidelines assume that pilots will respond to this condition within four seconds.
Four Boeing employees who worked as “authorized representatives” with permission to act on behalf of the FAA to validate the aircraft’s systems knew of the test pilot’s slow response. But there was no evidence that they reported this to the FAA, according to the report.
Another authorized representative raised concerns in 2016 about the dangers of MCAS repeatedly pointing the nose of the aircraft down, but the concerns never reached the FAA.
Repeated activation of MCAS and faulty sensors “were the main contributing factors to Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashing more than two years later,” according to the report.
According to the report, Boeing wanted to keep the details about MCAS from the FAA so as not to require additional pilot training. That would ruin Boeing’s sales pitch for the Max, that older 737 pilots wouldn’t have to go through extensive simulator training to fly the new planes.
Investigators found that Boeing had a financial incentive to avoid further pilot training. Under a 2011 contract with Southwest Airlines, Boeing would have had to cut a million dollars in the price of each Max if simulator training was needed.
“That generated a lot of really bad decisions internally at Boeing, and also the FAA didn’t realize these things,” DeFazio said.
He added that Boeing had an internal meeting in 2013 and agreed never to discuss MCAS outside of the company. At one point, MCAS was included in pilot training manuals, but an authorized representative approved its removal, he said.
In a statement, Boeing said it has worked to strengthen its safety culture and has cooperated with the committee. The company has incorporated many recommendations from committees and experts who have examined Max’s problems.
Boeing said it has learned from mistakes.
“Change is always difficult and requires daily commitment, but we, as a company, are dedicated to getting the job done,” the statement said.
The FAA said in a statement that it looks forward to working with the committee to make improvements and is already making changes based on internal and independent reviews. “These initiatives are focused on promoting overall aviation safety by improving our organization, processes and culture,” the FAA said, adding that several design changes are required to the Max before it can fly again.
When it comes to oversight by the FAA, investigators said they found multiple examples of agency managers overriding technical and safety experts at Boeing’s behest. A draft of the FAA’s internal safety culture survey said many in the FAA believe that aviation safety leaders “are too concerned with achieving business-oriented results from industry stakeholders and are not accountable. of security-related decisions, “the report said.
In an interview with investigators, Keith Leverkuhn, a former Boeing general manager for the Max who was promoted at the company, said he considered the development of the Max a success despite the accidents.
“I defy the suggestion that the development was a failure,” the report quotes.
The investigators wrote that this raised questions about Boeing’s ability to change.
“Only a genuine, holistic, and assertive commitment to changing the cultural issues unearthed in the committee’s investigation … can improve aviation safety and really help both Boeing and the FAA learn from the terrible lessons of the tragedies of the 737 Max, “says the report. .
