Senator slams FAA’s ‘deliberate’ attempt to stymie Max probe

Bloomberg

A Senate committee chairman sharply criticised the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for what he alleged were repeated failures to respond to a committee’s investigations, including into two crashes of Boeing Co’s 737 Max.
Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the Republican head of the Senate Commerce Committee, accused the FAA of
delaying interviews with its employees and failing to turn over documents as he opened a hearing at which the agency’s chief, Steve Dickson, was called to testify.
After more than a year of what he said was a failure to respond to the committee’s investigation into whistle-blower complaints, Wicker said the agency had “deliberately attempted to keep us in the dark.”
“It is hard not to characterise a relationship during this entire process as being adversarial on the part of the FAA,” the Mississippi lawmaker said. “Mr Dickson, I hold you responsible for this.” Dickson took issue with Wicker’s criticisms at the hearing, saying some of the panel’s requests overlap with information sought by other investigations and that the FAA was prohibited from releasing it.
“I believe it’s inaccurate to portray the agency as unresponsive,” Dickson, who took over the FAA last August after the Max crashes, told the committee. “We are going to redouble our efforts. I hear your frustration and that’s not OK with me.”
A person familiar with the agency’s actions later said that it had provided thousands of pages of documents, supplying the vast majority of the information the committee had requested. In all, more than 7,400 pages of material have been turned over by FAA to the committee.
Of the seven letters the committee had sent the FAA, the agency believes it has responded completely to five, said the person, who wasn’t authorised to discuss the sensitive matter publicly. In one other letter, the FAA has provided a large portion of what was sought, the person said. Additionally, less than 15% of the requested information relates to the grounded Max, added the person.
The hearing, which followed the release of a bipartisan bill that would require FAA to take authority overseeing planemakers such as Boeing, was contentious as lawmakers attacked Dickson and the agency.