Boeing chief defends ‘delegation’ in sometimes testy hearing

Bloomberg

Boeing Co’s chief executive declined to endorse specific reforms to bolster safety oversight of the aerospace giant during a sometimes angry grilling in his first appearance before Congress since two 737 Max crashes killed 346 people.
Several senators pressed Dennis Muilenburg on possible changes to the so-called delegation programmd in light of lapses that occurred in the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) certification of the 737 Max. While Muilenburg said the company would review reforms proposed by Congress, he repeatedly defended the company’s ability to sign off on aircraft designs.
Lawmakers are scrutinising a longstanding FAA practice that deputises company employees to issue safety approvals on new aircraft designs on the agency’s behalf. Muilenburg said drawing on the technical expertise of the company’s engineers helps streamline the approval process and has led to safety improvements, while adding that he welcomes government oversight and would be open to changes.
“I agree with the focus in that area,” Muilenburg told the Senate Commerce Committee.
“The delegated authority process, as it’s structured, we do think has contributed to safety in the industry.”
Under the direction of Congress, FAA has repeatedly expanded the ability of companies to sign off on aircraft designs.
At Boeing, the company directly oversees a pool of engineers who are deputised to act in behalf of FAA. That programme is called Organization Designation Authorization.
FAA engineers were involved early in the development of the 737 Max’s Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) implicated in both crashes. But the agency later handed approvals to designees at Boeing. While the agency retains ultimate authority, it wasn’t fully aware of changes to the system that made it more aggressive, reviews of the jet’s approval has found.
In both fatal crashes, faulty data from one of two angle-of-attack sensors, which measure the pitch of the plane against the oncoming stream of air, caused the MCAS to drive down the jet’s nose, which pilots struggled to counteract before ultimately entering a fatal dive.
John Hamilton, VP and chief engineer of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, acknowledged the company erred in how it tested MCAS, telling the committee’s top-ranking Democrat that the company “did test the MCAS uncommanded inputs to the stabiliser system, due to whatever causes was driving it, not specifically due to an AOA sensor.”
“They’ve moved closer to a full apology, but ‘some mistakes’ might not satisfy critics,” said aerospace analyst Richard Aboulafia of the Boeing CEO’s remarks.
Senator Ted Cruz took one of the hardest lines with the CEO, often raising his voice in heated questioning about what called “stunning” instant messages released recently in which a senior Boeing pilot told a colleague he’d unknowingly lied to regulators.
The Texas Republican who chairs of the Senate Commerce Committee’s aviation panel read portions of the messages aloud and grilled Muilenburg about why the company only recently provided them to FAA and lawmakers, months after Boeing gave the correspondence to the Justice Department. He criticised Muilenburg over his admission that he’d recently learned the details of the exchange.
“You’re the CEO. The buck stops with you. Did you read this document and how did your team not put it in front of you and run in with their hair on fire saying ‘We got a real problem here?”’ Cruz said.