MAX oppdatering - Curt Lewis

 

Congressional Inquiry Faults Boeing And FAA Failures For Deadly 737 Max Plane Crashes A sweeping congressional inquiry into the development and certification of Boeing's troubled 737 Max airplane finds damning evidence of failures at both Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration that "played instrumental and causative roles" in two fatal crashes of the plane, which killed a total of 346 people. The House Transportation Committee released an investigative report produced by Democratic staff this morning. It documents what it says is "a disturbing pattern of technical miscalculations and troubling management misjudgments" by Boeing, combined with "numerous oversight lapses and accountability gaps by the FAA." Lion Air flight 610 crashed in October 2018, and Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 crashed in March 2019, both Boeing 737 Max aircraft. "The Max crashes were not the result of a singular failure, technical mistake, or mismanaged event," the committee report says. Instead, "they were the horrific culmination of a series of faulty technical assumptions by Boeing's engineers, a lack of transparency on the part of Boeing's management, and grossly insufficient oversight by the FAA." The report is the latest of many investigations into the 737 Max crashes and includes little new information. But it appears to be the most comprehensive in analyzing both Boeing's and the FAA's roles in developing and certifying an ultimately flawed commercial passenger jet. House Transportation Committee Chairman Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., says one of the most startling revelations uncovered by the investigation is that "both FAA and Boeing came to the conclusion that the certification of the Max was compliant" with FAA regulations. He calls that "mind-boggling." "The problem is it was compliant and not safe. And people died," DeFazio said, adding that it's "clear evidence that the current regulatory system is fundamentally flawed and needs to be repaired." "This is a tragedy that never should have happened," DeFazio added. "It could have been prevented and we're going to take steps in our legislation to see that it never happens again as we reform the system." DeFazio's committee is drafting legislation that would overhaul the aircraft certification process and strengthen the FAA's oversight of airplane manufacturers. The Senate Commerce Committee is expected to take up similar, but somewhat weaker legislation today. Failures of design, management and regulation The House committee's report examines Boeing's engineering and technical design flaws, especially in developing a new flight control system called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS. Earlier investigations found that in both the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes, faulty data from a single angle-of-attack sensor caused MCAS to force the planes into repeated nose dives that the pilots eventually could not pull out of. The report also details the faulty and outdated assumptions engineers made about how pilots would react in such a crisis and how Boeing failed to install an alert system that could have warned the crew, among other technical failures. The investigative report outlines the intense pressure Boeing employees were under to keep costs down and the plane's development on schedule, as the company rushed development of the 737 Max to compete with the new Airbus A320neo. Democratic Congressman Rick Larsen of Washington, whose Seattle-area district includes Boeing factories and thousands of company employees, chairs the House Aviation Subcommittee. He says misguided priorities of senior management drove a number of troubling decisions that put profits ahead of safety. "In one case, senior management went as far as installing countdown clocks in conference rooms," said Larsen, "making clear to Max employees that meeting production timelines rather than safety was the top priority." Another troubling finding is what the report calls the "culture of concealment." It documents several critical instances in which Boeing withheld crucial information from the FAA, its customers and 737 Max pilots. This included concealing the very existence of the MCAS system from 737 Max pilots and failing to disclose that a warning signal to alert pilots of problems with critical sensors was inoperable on the vast majority of the 737 Max fleet. Dissenters existed but were not heeded Some Boeing pilots, engineers and other employees did raise safety concerns about the 737 Max but those concerns were either inadequately addressed or dismissed by Boeing and never reached the FAA. Aviation journalist Christine Negroni, author of The Crash Detectives: Investigating the World's Most Mysterious Air Disasters, notes that the investigators found substantial evidence that significant red flags were raised. "As you go through and see the number of people who reported things, the number of emails in which MCAS is discussed," she says, "that tells you that people were concerned. And yet it never saw the light of day until after the first airline crashes." Negroni says MCAS appeared a half-million times in emails and other internal documents, yet Boeing was able to keep airlines and pilots from knowing the flight control system even existed, as any mention of MCAS was kept out of pilot training and flight manuals. Negroni says there isn't much new information in the congressional investigative report. "But in the whole, what is to me astonishing about the report is the depth, the thickness and the deep history of both FAA and Boeing knowing that there were problems with the redesign of this airliner and the obliviousness of both parties in recognizing that this was a problem that needed to be addressed." The mounting evidence that the plane crashes were preventable is an especially painful realization for the families of those who died in the Max plane crashes. "It angers us to see how much Boeing did to cover this up and how much FAA has done to help them cover it up," said Michael Stumo. His 24-year-old daughter, Samya Rose Stumo, was on the fatal Ethiopian Airlines flight. "The Lion Air crash in October of 2018, we now see should not have happened," Stumo said. "But then, the covering up to keep the Max in the air after the Lion Air crash, so that it crashed again in Ethiopia and killed my daughter was unforgivable." In a statement, a Boeing spokesman says the company has "learned many hard lessons" from the crashes "and from the mistakes we have made." The statement adds that Boeing has "made fundamental changes to our company as a result, and continue[s] to look for ways to improve." The FAA says it "is committed to continually advancing aviation safety and looks forward to working with the Committee to implement improvements identified in its report." The aviation regulatory agency says in a statement that it is already implementing initiatives aimed at "improving our organization, processes, and culture." The FAA is also mandating "a number of design changes to the Boeing 737 Max before it returns to passenger service." The House Transportation Committee is now drafting legislation to improve FAA oversight in the airplane certification process. Republicans on the committee did not endorse the investigative report. A statement from ranking member Sam Graves of Missouri says, "if aviation and safety experts determine that areas in the FAA's processes for certifying aircraft and equipment can be improved, then Congress will act." But he criticized Democrats for an investigation that "began by concluding that our system was broken and worked backwards from there." Chairman DeFazio says "aviation safety should not be partisan," adding that he is optimistic the parties can work out differences on FAA reforms.

Boeing hid design flaws in Max jets from pilots and regulators Congressional report into why two 737 aircraft crashed within months of each other finds aerospace group cut corners Photo: Per Gram A congressional report found a 'disturbing pattern of technical miscalculations and troubling management misjudgments made by Boeing' with regard to the 737 Max © REUTERS Boeing hid design flaws in its 737 Max jet from both pilots and regulators as it raced to have the aeroplane certified as fit to fly, according to a damning congressional report into why two of the aircraft crashed within months of each other last year, killing 346 people. The report by the US House of Representatives transport committee found the US aircraft maker cut corners and pressured regulators to overlook aspects of its new design in its attempts to catch up with European rival Airbus. It also accused US regulators of being too concerned with pleasing the company to exercise proper oversight. The report said: "[The two crashes] were the horrific culmination of a series of faulty technical assumptions by Boeing's engineers, a lack of transparency on the part of Boeing's management, and grossly insufficient oversight by the [Federal Aviation Administration] - the pernicious result of regulatory capture on the part of the FAA with respect to its responsibilities to perform robust oversight of Boeing and to ensure the safety of the flying public. "The facts laid out in this report document a disturbing pattern of technical miscalculations and troubling management misjudgments made by Boeing. It also illuminates numerous oversight lapses and accountability gaps by the FAA that played a significant role in the 737 Max crashes." Boeing has been under multiple investigations since last year, when a Max jet operated by Ethiopian Airlines crashed just five months after another owned by Indonesia's Lion Air plunged into the sea. Investigators have found that on both occasions, a faulty sensor caused an automatic anti-stall system to kick in erroneously, forcing the aeroplane's nose downwards. Pilots for both Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines battled to right their jets, but were overridden by the automatic system each time they did so. Members of Congress have been conducting their own probe into the accidents since last April. Wednesday's report marks the culmination of 17 months of investigation, involving five public hearings, 24 interviews and 600,000 pages of documents. The 238-page report details how Boeing attempted to minimise both the regulatory testing and pilot training required to fly the new Max, which was being rushed out in an attempt to compete with the Airbus A320neo. It found the company successfully persuaded the FAA not to classify the anti-stall system as "safety critical", meaning that many pilots did not even know of its existence before flying the Max. In doing so, Boeing concealed from regulators internal test data showing that if a pilot took longer than 10 seconds to recognise that the system had kicked in erroneously, the consequences would be "catastrophic". The report also detailed how an alert, which would have warned pilots of a potential problem with one of their anti-stall sensors, was not working on the vast majority of the Max fleet. It found that the company deliberately concealed this fact from both pilots and regulators as it continued to roll out the new aircraft around the world. Boeing has been working to correct the faults found in the Max for more than a year, and recently said it hoped to begin delivering the jet again in the third quarter. The company said: "The revised design of the Max has received intensive internal and regulatory review, including more than 375,000 engineering and test hours and 1,300 test flights. Once the FAA and other regulators have determined the Max can safely return to service, it will be one of the most thoroughly-scrutinised aircraft in history." While the company cut corners in its attempts to certify the Max, the committee found a compliant regulator in the FAA. The FAA certifies new aircraft designs by relying heavily on "authorised representatives", company employees who are authorised by the regulator to validate certain designs and systems. And the report found that on several occasions Boeing did not flag important pieces of information to the regulator. Members of Congress have introduced legislation that would toughen the FAA's aircraft certification process, including carrying out regular independent audits on company-employed representatives. The FAA said in a statement: "The FAA is committed to continually advancing aviation safety and looks forward to working with the committee to implement improvements identified in its report."