The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday has released its final report after an 18-month investigation into Boeing 737 MAX deadly crashes – which killed 346 people in two accidents between 2018 and 2019. The 238-page report from the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure has basically confirmed what the public suspected – Boeing and FAA are responsible!
After Indonesian budget airline Lion Air Flight 610 crashed on Oct 29, 2018, killing 189 people, the FAA scrambled to investigate.
From the beginning, the 737 MAX – Boeing’s bestseller airplane – was produced with “serious flaws and missteps in the design, development, and certification of the aircraft.” Despite that, the 737 MAX aircraft – made at Boeing’s factory in the US state of Washington – received certification from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in March 2017.
Investigators found that both crashes were tied to a software called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS). In both crashes, incorrect data from a faulty sensor caused MCAS to misfire, forcing the plane to nose down repeatedly, even as the pilots struggled to regain control and gain altitude. Amazingly, MCAS was not mentioned in the pilot manual.
But from the beginning, the new MCAS had been
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) found that the pilots in both Indonesian and Ethiopian crashes were bombarded with multiple alarms and alerts in the cockpit before the planes crashed. The new design and system was so complex – and secretive – that some pilots said that they didn’t even know
The committee report said it found damning evidence of “repeated and serious failures by both Boeing and the FAA” in 737 MAX aircrafts that killed 346 people. While Boeing was responsible for hiding “crucial information from the FAA, its customers, and 737 MAX pilots”, the FAA was faulted for giving Boeing so much leeway that led to the failure to report certain safety issues.
In fact, FAA officials had given Boeing approvals, overruling the agency’s own safety regulations just to keep Boeing happy. In December 2019, a document derived from the FAA’s November 2018 internal analysis was released during the House Transportation Committee hearing. That document revealed some very damaging information.
Not only did the Boeing engineers know about the defective MCAS software as early as 2017, but also the calculations of possible fatal crashes as a result of it. But the best part was that after the first crash involving the Lion Air flight in October 2018, an FAA analysis of the Boeing 737 MAX jetliner had predicted “as many as “.
Despite the discovery by the FAA that the Boeing 737 MAX could crash 15 times and kill more than 3,000 people in its lifespan of 45 years, the FAA allowed the airplane to keep flying. Now, the committee final report has revealed the dirty secrets why Boeing was allowed to escape scrutiny from the FAA, so much so that both Boeing and FAA were scratching each other’s back.
Apparently, there was tremendous financial pressure on Boeing and the 737 MAX program to compete with Airbus’ new A320neo aircraft. Boeing had to deliver profits for Wall Street, leading to cost cutting measures and rushing to maintain the program on schedule. The committee exposed how Boeing and FAA both gambled with public safety in exchange for profits.
The report also revealed how Boeing’s “culture of concealment” created a situation where years before the crashes, a Boeing test pilot took more than 10 seconds to diagnose and respond to uncommanded MCAS activation in a flight simulator – a condition described as “catastrophic” because federal guidelines assume pilots will respond to this condition within 4 seconds.
Boeing’s influence over FAA was so severe that not only Boeing employees have been authorized to perform work on behalf of the FAA, but also failed to alert the FAA to potential safety and/or certification issues. It was so bad that even FAA employees believed their senior leaders were more concerned with helping Boeing achieve its goals that safety-related decisions have been ignored.
The Committee Chair DeFazio said – “On behalf of the families of the victims of both crashes, as well as anyone who steps on a plane expecting to arrive at their destination safely, we are making this report public to put a spotlight not only on the broken safety culture at Boeing but also the gaps in the regulatory system at the FAA that allowed this fatally-flawed plane into service.”
Other Articles That May Interest You …
- FAA Calculated Boeing 737 MAX Could Crash 15 Times & Kill More Than 3,000 People – But Allowed It To Keep Flying
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September 17th, 2020 by financetwitter
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There isn’t much point keeping Boeing going for much longer, it’s soon going to be the age of the flying car.
For what we know – or don’t, flying cars are going to steal a march on electric cars.
We already have the experience and expertise coming up with paper-thin origami coffins on four cheap tyres from the legendary ultra loss-maker Proton that has killed more people on our roads than Boeing ever did in the air in its whole history.
Until our intelligent and very able Chinese uncles came and took over Proton and transformed it into a huge success, Proton which was decades ahead of the whole Chinese car industry was dying a painful, slow, very expensive death – very much like its dad, who is still dying a slow, expensive, but not so painful death.
When the Chinese uncles came, Proton was still totally useless at doing anything, and that included cooking kangkong which is not exactly a Chinese veg!
I don’t know whose “child” Boeing is but Boeing should offer itself to the Chinese – if Trump would allow it. China is a huge market the US cannot afford to lose, besides Boeing owes China à whopping penalty for hundreds of cancelled aircraft orders.
Just like Malaysia’s experience with building a flying coffin, China has been building Boeing (and Airbuses) under licence for a good while now.
As China has a huge market for air passengers, Boeing cannot have it’s aircrafts built in Malaysia, as Malaysia hasn’t even any proper airline that even Malaysians won’t spit on.
As usual, I would advise Boeing kowtow, like Malaysia, to the brilliant Chinese uncles, let them swallow up Boeing. Boeing can only expect the Chinese to make soaring profit – and a better dish of kangkong.