Farnborough 2016 - Foto: Per Gram
U.S. Rep Peter DeFazio Wants Safer
Skies-and a Closer Eye on Boeing
As chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure
Committee, U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) wields more clout in Congress on
travel than any other Oregonian. His committee is responsible for the nation's
highways, waterways and sky.
Today, DeFazio, 72, faces perhaps his biggest challenge since
entering Congress in 1987: finding a balance between keeping airline passengers
safe and the economic fate of the country's largest exporter and one of its
leading manufacturers, Boeing.
DeFazio's committee is sifting through the wreckage of two of the
company's 737 Max airliners for clues to who's to blame. Those crashes caused
346 deaths, led to the grounding of 400 planes worldwide, and raised troubling
questions about both Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration.
We caught up with DeFazio for an interview that has been edited
for brevity and clarity.
WW: Is this the most substantial investigation you've been
involved in as a member of Congress?
Peter DeFazio: Not only me, it's the most substantial
investigation in the history of the Transportation Committee, which has existed
since the first Congress.
How did we get here?
It all started with a phone call in 2011. American Airlines called
Boeing and said, "Hey, we're going to buy 400 planes, and they're all
going to be Airbuses unless you can match the fuel economy and, most
critically"-what caused all this-"the pilots cannot be required to
undergo high-level training." Boeing was in the initial stages of
designing a new narrow-body airplane, a modern airplane, because the airframe
design for the 737 is 50 years old. And [Boeing] made a fateful decision, which
is, "We'll lose market share while we're doing this new plane, so let's
just, one more time, re-engine the old 737."
The Federal Aviation Administration regulates air safety. Where
were they in all this?
Their conclusion was, this was a month after the first crash [Lion
Air Flight 610, Oct. 29, 2018], if this system is not corrected, then 15 of
these planes will go down over the life of the fleet. And they didn't grab the
planes. Boeing said it was going to fix this, and the FAA figured, "Well,
another one isn't going to go down before Boeing fixes it." Obviously, the
system did not work.
Should FAA Administrator Stephen Dickson keep his job?
Yeah, he just came in. I've got other differences with FAA, but he
wasn't there, he's not the problem. In fact, he's taken responsibility, which
the head of Boeing really hasn't. The head of Boeing sure as heck should go.
[After this interview, Boeing fired CEO Dennis A. Muilenburg on Dec. 20.]
After the second plane went down (Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302,
March 10, 2019), every aviation regulatory agency on the planet grounded the
planes, with the exception of the FAA. Is this country providing less protection
for its air travelers than any other First World country?
Two key points: The FAA's head of safety came in in February after
the first crash, after they had this evaluation that 15 more would go down, and
told me it was a one-off incident having to do with maintenance and pilot
error. Obviously not true, and they had an analysis that contradicted that.
Secondly, I called the then-acting FAA administrator, Daniel Elwell, and said,
"Why aren't you grounding the planes?" and he said, 'Well, we're waiting
for data," and I said, "Well, it looks like the exact same thing to
me." There are systemic problems we're going to get at.
What kind of changes do you want at the agency?
We're going to find a way to have a larger number of inspectors,
and most of that burden is going to fall on the [industry]. And we're going to
have to make sure there is a much more transparent process in terms of concerns
raised by safety specialists and how those are processed and how high up in the
organization they go. The head of safety says he didn't know about the
[document] that said 15 of these planes were going to go down. I mean, he
didn't know anything. We're going to look at that, too. What does the head of
safety do at the FAA?
Is Boeing's decision to suspend production of the 737 Max directly
related to your hearings?
I think the end result of our pressure on both Boeing and the FAA
made this an inevitable action. What's really tragic is the workers. They've
built the planes the way they were told to. And the Boeing CEO got a $15
million bonus, and workers are going to potentially lose their jobs. It's just
the crappy way this country works.
What do you mean?
The board and the senior executives at Boeing are all looking at
bonuses based on Boeing's stock price, and therefore the pressure starts with
Wall Street. And I'm sure they said, "God, if we're going to lose market
share and it's going to take us three more years to put up a modern airplane,
our stocks are going to go down, which means our bonuses are going to go
down."
