MAX oppdatering - Curt Lewis

Air Safety Regulator, Boeing Made Mistakes on 737 MAX, Says Federal Aviation Chief The head of the Federal Aviation Administration, Steve Dickson, acknowledged on Wednesday that Boeing Co. and the U.S. air safety agency both made mistakes on the 737 MAX jet, but rejected senators' accusations the FAA was "stonewalling" probes after two fatal crashes. Boeing's 737 MAX has been grounded since March 2019 following crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed 346 people, triggering multiple investigations into how the plane was certified as safe. In a particularly tense exchange at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on aircraft certification, Senator Ted Cruz accused Dickson of speaking in the passive voice as a way of "avoiding responsibility" after Dickson told him, "Mistakes were made." "So unknown somebodies made unspecified mistakes for which there were no repercussions," Cruz said. "What mistakes were made and who made them?" After a pause, Dickson said, "The manufacturer made mistakes and the FAA made mistakes in its oversight." Dickson then referred to Boeing's development of a flight control system that repeatedly pushed down the jet's nose in both crashes as pilots battled to gain control. "The full implications of the flight control system were not understood as design changes were made," he said. One senator at the hearing said the agency was like "a dog watching TV" when it came to policing Boeing's work, and another said the agency was "stonewalling" the committee's investigation into the 737 MAX's development. "Your team at the FAA has attempted deliberately to keep us in the dark," Senator Roger Wicker, the Republican committee chairman, told Dickson. Dickson told Wicker he was "totally committed to the oversight process." "I believe it is inaccurate to portray the agency as unresponsive," Dickson said, pointing to its cooperation in multiple investigations. "There is still ongoing work." After the hearing, an FAA official said the agency has provided "more than 7,400 pages of responsive materials" to the committee and that some material was restricted by international rules on crash investigations. Boeing declined to comment. Strengthen Oversight The hearing came a day after Wicker and Senator Maria Cantwell, the ranking Democrat on the committee, introduced bipartisan legislation that would strengthen FAA oversight of Boeing's designs. The crashes and Boeing's long-delayed efforts to win regulatory approval to return the 737 MAX to commercial service plunged the Chicago-based company into its worst-ever crisis, since compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Aircraft Safety and Certification Reform Act of 2020, introduced on Tuesday, would give the FAA new authority to hire or remove Boeing employees conducting FAA certification tasks, and grant new whistleblower protections to employees. Dickson told Cantwell he did not think it would improve safety if the FAA appointed the certification employees, but agreed to look at the Senate proposal. He also told lawmakers there were many items in the legislation "that are exactly on point," including a provision that would authorize $150 million over 10 years for new FAA training and to hire specialized personnel. Michael Stumo, whose daughter died in the Ethiopia crash, which came five months after the crash in Indonesia, applauded such reforms but told lawmakers the bill did not go far enough. Stumo demanded that manufacturers be subjected to a tougher certification process when they introduce an aircraft derived from models certified years before. The 737 MAX, for example, was derived from a plane first developed in the 1960s. "The first crash should not have happened," Stumo said. "The second crash is inexcusable." Senators Rip FAA Over Failure To Turn Over 737 Max Documents The Federal Aviation Administration is facing bipartisan outrage. Senators from both parties accuse the agency of "stonewalling" congressional investigators and keeping them "in the dark" in their effort to examine what went wrong in certifying Boeing's troubled 737 Max airplane. At a Senate Commerce Committee hearing Wednesday on proposed changes to the way the FAA certifies aircraft, Chairman Roger Wicker dispensed with pleasantries and immediately called out FAA Administrator Stephen Dickson and his agency for not turning over many key internal documents more than a year after congressional investigators began asking for them. "This record of delay and non-responsiveness clearly shows at best, an unwillingness to cooperate in Congressional oversight," said Wicker, a Mississippi Republican. "It is hard not to conclude your team at the FAA has deliberately attempted to keep us in the dark." Wicker said the FAA's relationship with the committee has turned adversarial, adding that he holds Dickson responsible."I can only assume that the agency's stonewalling of my investigation suggests discomfort for what might ultimately be revealed." The committee's top Democrat, Sen. Maria Cantwell, whose home state of Washington is where Boeing makes the 737 Max and man its other planes, also criticized Dickson and the FAA for failing to provide documents and allow key FAA employees be interviewed by committee staff. "I don't want to be stonewalled here," she said. "I believe it's inaccurate to portray the agency as unresponsive," said FAA Administrator Stephen Dickson in response. "We are going to redouble our efforts (to cooperate). I hear your frustration and that's not OK with me; that's not where we want to be." 737 Max Scandal Cuts Boeing's Once Rock-Solid Image 'Relationship between FAA and Boeing is too cozy' The committee is investigating allegations that the relationship between the FAA and Boeing is too cozy, and resulted in a rubber stamp approval when the FAA certified the troubled 737 Max. Two of the planes crashed, in Indonesia in October of 2018 and in Ethiopia in March of last year, killing a total of 346 people, and the commercial jet by regulators around the world ever since. "Boeing's efforts to push for more self-certification and to push the FAA to move faster and faster to approve the 737 Max, were totally counter-productive and resulted in tragedy," said Democrat Tom Udall of New Mexico. "This continues to be a case study of the complete and total failure of self regulation." Internal messages and emails between Boeing employees show how the company misled regulators about a new automated flight control system on the plane, and mocked the FAA's oversight. One brags and jokes about "jedi mind tricking" regulators into approving the jets without requiring additional pilot training. Asked by Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz if Boeing lied to the FAA about the flight control system known as MCAS and downplayed safety concerns, Dickson said, "I can't say. Definitely there was incomplete information and fragmented information that was provided, no doubt." When Dickson acknowledged "mistakes were made," Cruz ripped into Dickson on his use of the passive voice. "So unknown somebodies made unspecified mistakes for which there were no repercussions," Cruz said. "What mistakes were made and who made them?" "The manufacturer (Boeing) made mistakes and the FAA made mistakes in its oversight of the manufacturer," Dickson admitted. Revamping the process Bipartisan legislation introduced Tuesday by Wicker and Cantwell seeks to strengthen the FAA's oversight of airplane certification, revamping the process and tightening controls over a program that currently has Boeing employees doing much of the safety testing and analysis work. One change would require the FAA to select the manufacturer's employees for the ODA (Organization Designation Authorization) program, instead of relying on companies like Boeing to pick them. "Critically, our bill will end any semblance of self-certification," Cantwell said. Dickson acknowledged in the hearing that, "We need to have strong oversight of the ODA." But he told the senators that changing who selects company insiders to do that safety work "is not something that I believe would add to the safety of the process." He noted that so-called designees already must meet FAA qualifications and are overseen by FAA inspectors, calling it a "trust but verify system." Sen. Cantwell disagreed, saying, "This is the very point. We need an independent FAA." Added Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal, "The FAA has to do the work, not just oversee it." Families of victims disappointed Families of those killed in the two 737 Max plane crashes came away disappointed. Michael Stumo, whose 24-year old daughter Samya Rose Stumo died in the Ethiopian Airlines crash, was the only other witness who testified at the Senate hearing. He blasted the FAA for allowing the 737 Max to keep flying for five months after the crash of the Lion Air plane in Indoneasia, when the FAA's own analysis predicted more crashes could happen before Boeing could fix the flight control system. "The first crash should not have happened. The second crash is inexcusable," Stumo, said. "They gambled, we lost." "Dickson is just full of empty sentiment and empty promises," added 24-year old Zipporah Kuria, whose father, Joseph Waithaka, 55, was killed in the Ethiopian airlines crash on March 10, 2019. "The amount of pain that we feel by the fact that it's been a year after our loved ones deaths and no one has been held accountable." Kuria and other family members expressed little confidence that the FAA can regain their trust, especially as Beoing works to get the 737 Max recertified this summer.

FAA to Hire More Data Scientists, Software Engineers Under 737 MAX Certification Reform There is still no clear timeline on when Boeing's 737 MAX will return to passenger carrying service, as lawmakers learned during a June 18 hearing with FAA Administrator Stephen Dickson. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will hire more software and systems engineers, human factors experts and other technological subject matter experts as a way of improving how the agency certifies increasingly complex avionics and other systems into the future, after a review of how the 737 MAX was certified showed the need for more personnel with new skill sets. Boeing resumed 737 MAX production on May 27, although the aircraft remains grounded with a return to commercial service still uncertain. FAA Administrator Stephen Dickson discussed changes the agency plans to make to its process for certifying complex flight control and other aircraft systems, as well as the way it will assess such technology, during a Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation hearing on Wednesday. "Our aviation safety organization has a 10-year workforce plan. We're in the process of reviewing our needs and we will have a focus on human factors experts, systems engineers, software engineers, data scientists so we can stay ahead of new technologies as they're introduced," Dickson said. Dickson's comments show swift action by the agency to add experts with newer technological skill sets, a key recommendation featured in the January report published by the independent special committee tasked with reviewing the certification process followed by the FAA and Boeing for the 737 MAX program.  The report recommended a transformation of the FAA's Aircraft Certification Service (AIR), to include hiring personnel with backgrounds in data analytics, systems engineering, operations research and program management to keep pace with the growth in complexity of new certification projects. In February, the FAA published its 2021 budget request, $17.5 billion, including $10 million assigned to adding 50 new technical employees. This would be the first phase of an increased hiring effort, as the agency actually expects to need a total of 236 new safety critical and safety technical positions. The FAA is also offering hiring incentives for operations aviation safety inspectors and "mission critical positions during COVID-19" right now. "We have plans to recruit system safety engineers, software engineers, as well as additional human factors experts," Dickson said. There will also be increased coordination between the FAA's flight standards division and AIR in future certification projects. Another change from the agency is a focus on integrating the FAA's aircraft evaluation group pilots into the overall certification process earlier. Pilots from the evaluation group are to start receiving more training on system safety assessments and certification procedures so that they have more visibility over the type of issues maneuvering characteristics augmentation system (MCAS) presented to Ethiopian and Lion Air pilots. FAA Administrator Stephen Dickson discussed changes the agency will make to the way it certifies complex aircraft systems in the future during a Senate hearing on Wednesday, June 17. Photo: C-Span Overall, changes to the certification and safety assessment processes are also designed to allow the FAA and manufacturers to produce certification data and criteria in under more holistic integrated aircraft systems approach, rather than the independent view that has been used in the past. "Bolstering our human factors expertise, so there is a workforce component, in addition to working with academia and NASA on these issues, involving our pilots and our flight standards group, aircraft evaluation group into the cert process at an earlier and more integrated point, in the process will allow us to take a more holistic view of the role of the human in aircraft design," Dickson said. There was also some discussion during the hearing about the return of the 737 MAX to passenger carrying service, which the FAA chief repeatedly told administrators does not have a timeline, but will rely on the agency's determination of whether the software updates introduced by Boeing last year address known issues with the MCAS system. In April, Avionics learned that the re-certification program for the MAX was waiting on a certification flight and a software validation effort associated with a modification to the MAX's flight control computer that is not associated with MCAS. Two features involving the computer's microprocessor and autopilot engagement are the focus of the software validation effort. COVID-19 has not had an impact on the ability of regulators to review the software modification or pilots to test fly the MAX, however Dickson told the committee that the review continues not only because of the MCAS system, but because Boeing is essentially modifying the entire flight control system. "There's much more redundancy, the flight control computers in pitch compare their signals dynamically that's an extremely ambitious project, as we have moved forward when you make a system like that more robust what happens is it implicates interdependences with other sub systems on the aircraft that have to be taken into account," Dickson said. "We've moved forward diligently and affordably and have maintained we will issue the airworthiness certs ourselves, that's why this has been such a journey we've been on."