Senate panel delays vote on aircraft certification reforms
The US Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday postponed consideration of a bill to overhaul how the Federal Aviation Administration certifies new airplanes in the wake of two fatal Boeing 737 MAX crashes.
The decision to delay the vote on the bill followed the release earlier on Wednesday of a U.S. House report that found the crashes were the "horrific culmination" of failures by Boeing Co and the FAA.
Boeing's 737 MAX has been grounded since March 2019 following crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia that together killed 346 people and prompted investigations into the plane's design, development and certification. The House report called for urgent reforms to improve how planes are certified.
While the Senate committee's proposed bill would mark the most significant effort toward adopting certification reforms, critics including families of the 737 MAX crash victims have called for more. The 70-page bipartisan Senate bill would grant the FAA new power over the long-standing practice of delegating some tasks to aircraft manufacturer employees and create new whistleblower protections.
The bill, jointly endorsed by Senate Commerce Committee Republican Chairman Roger Wicker and the committee's top Democrat, Maria Cantwell, would also bolster misconduct investigations and discipline management at the FAA and require a review of FAA certification expertise. "It's very important that we have accountability and transparency both at the FAA and at manufacturers," Cantwell said.
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