Better review needed after Boeing crashes
The House’s investigation is a needed follow-up to the Transportation Department panel’s see-no-evil probe.
The Editorial Board
Tue, 21 Jan 2020 05:00:00 GMT
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Two Boeing 737 Max jet liners crashed, killing 346 people in five months’ time.
The cause: An automated sensor meant to prevent the model from stalling malfunctioned, driving down the two planes’ noses in a manner that the pilots could not overcome.
The pilots had not been trained on the new feature, something Boeing had resisted.
Yet a panel of aviation experts called upon by the U.S. Department of Transportation to review the Federal Aviation Administration’s process for approving planes safe to fly says its “mandate was to collect and analyze information, not find fault.”
And, surprise, surprise, it found none. House Aviation Subcommittee Chairman Rick Larsen, fortunately, is taking another look. Given the tragedies linked to Boeing’s 737 Max, the congressional review would be right to do some fault-finding along with its fact-finding.
The panel of aviation experts said that the current system — which allows Boeing and other airplane manufacturers to oversee the reviews of their own planes’ readiness to fly — “promotes safety” and allows “industry and innovation to thrive.”
And its faith in the system overall is not unfounded. As the panel’s report noted, since 1996, the fatal accident rate for U.S. airlines has dropped from 80.9 per 100 million passengers to 0.6 per 100 million in fiscal year 2019.
“Any radical changes to this system could undermine the collaboration and expertise that undergird the current certification system,” the panel wrote, “jeopardizing the remarkable level of safety that has been attained in recent decades.”
Still, something clearly went wrong with the 737 Max, making the committee’s charge to take a “collaborative, not investigative” approach in its review seems almost designed to find no need for significant changes in the FAA’s safety approval process.
Mr. Larsen is worried by internal Boeing documents showing disdain for regulators and regulation. And he said his committee plans a review aimed at changing the key thing that went wrong with the 737 Max.
“It’s not a matter of if the committee is going to act to change how airplanes and components that go into airplanes are certified but it’s how we’re going to do that,” he said.
One of the troubling finds by the House Transportation Committee so far was an internal FAA analysis made after the first of the two 737 Max crashes.
In it, the agency estimated 15 more fatal crashes over 45 years if the faulty sensor was not fixed.
That’s a problem. It’s one any review of the FAA’s approval process needs to look at. The House’s investigation is a needed follow-up to the Transportation Department panel’s see-no-evil probe.