FAA faces its own reckoning as it gives Boeing path to fly jet

Bloomberg

It’s not just Boeing Co’s 737 Max that needed repairs.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which approved what officials acknowledge was a flawed design implicated in two deadly crashes of the jetliner, found itself facing criticism from regulators around the world — a stunning turnabout for an organisation accustomed to global deference.
In the wake of the disasters, the FAA is revising how it reviews new aircraft after panels of outside experts cited organisational deficiencies. Congress, which conducted its own investigations, is poised to cut the FAA’s reliance on inspectors working for manufacturers such as Boeing and may provide money for the agency to hire more engineers.
The changes have huge implications for one of America’s leading industries as well as the safety of air travel. After decades in which the industry has sought more flexibility from the FAA, adding new restrictions could make approvals more costly or slow down the oversight process.
“I would say for everyone involved, aviation is something that we have to approach with humility and a certain amount of skepticism,” said Steve Dickson, who was named FAA administrator after the crashes. “We have to make sure we’re always asking questions, not taking things at face value.”
Yet even that may not be enough for some relatives of the crash victims and critics of the agency, which has cleared the plane to resume flights.
“The lax oversight that, in effect, let Boeing self-certify the safety of the aircraft remains in place,” Democratic Senators Edward Markey of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said in a joint statement. “Some small changes have been made by the agency, but they are not sufficient.”
Dickson signed an order allowing the 737 Max, Boeing’s best-selling jet, to return to service. The agency is requiring fixes to a flight-control feature implicated in the two crashes that killed 346 people and
other changes addressing safety issues uncovered during a 20-month grounding.
The crashes, in Ethiopia and off the coast of Indonesia, focussed attention on the agency and review panels came out with recommendations to prevent the kind of miscommunication and miscalculations in the original approval of the Max.
For major certification projects in the future, the FAA will create a new position of program manager who can ensure that design decisions are shared among departments, Dickson said in an interview and press conference.
Creating an outside panel of experts, such as one that reviewed FAA’s decisions on the Max, will become standard on all such projects, Dickson added.
The agency is also devoting more time and resources to assess how pilots react to emergencies and writing regulations requiring better internal safety measures at companies such as Boeing, all of which were identified as shortfalls during the plane’s approval.
Dickson told reporters that “we don’t know” whether those changes will cause future aviation programs to take longer, which would add more costs on industry.
The agency hopes that opening lines of communication with entities it regulates can actually speed the approval process even as it adds rigor to oversight, he said.
“That’s what we’re shooting for in terms of improving and moving to really the next level of safety with aircraft certification,” he added. “I wouldn’t say longer, but I would say better.”
At the same time, Dickson has repeatedly said the agency must take as much time as needed to ensure designs are safe.
Separate legislation in the US House of Representatives and the Senate would mandate some of the steps the FAA is taking and go further.

EU aviation watchdog sees 737 Max approval in Jan
Bloomberg

Europe’s aviation safety regulator will probably approve the return of Boeing’s 737 Max in January after studies and test flights showed the US planemaker has fixed the faults that caused fatal crashes.
“All these studies show us that the plane can return to service,” Patrick Ky, head of European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), said. “It’s likely that, in our case, we’ll adopt the decisions that will allow us to put it back in service in the course of January.”
EU approval will mark a milestone in Boeing’s effort to return the Max to service
outside the US, after the Federal Aviation Administration granted final clearance for the jet’s return. The green light from EASA, which sought additional safety measures beyond what the FAA required, would allow Boeing to begin delivering already-built planes again in a region with major customers including Ryanair Holdings Plc.
Ky signalled that he was satisfied with the changes Boeing had made to the plane after two crashes within five months killed 346 people, leading to the global grounding of the 737 Max fleet in March 2019.