FAA failure
Slow action on the Max 8 put the public at risk
After completing its portion of the international investigation into two Boeing 737 Max 8 crashes, the Federal Aviation Administration needs to take a hard look at itself.
The U.S. was the last major country to ground the jets last week in the wake of eerily similar crashes — one March 10 in Ethiopia that killed 157 and one Oct. 29 off the coast of Indonesia that killed 189. Both planes made a series of climbs and dives before plummeting minutes after takeoff.
After the March 10 disaster, some countries quickly moved to ground the Max 8. In other countries, airlines voluntarily grounded the planes until investigators could find out what, if anything, was wrong with them.
But in the U.S . ... nothing. Chicago-based Boeing stood by its big-selling plane. American and Southwest, the two airlines operating the Max 8, did, too, even as passengers rued their safety and two unions representing airline employees demanded that the jets be grounded.
As late as Tuesday night, after the Max 8 had been banned from the airspace of dozens of countries, the FAA doubled down on its refusal to do the same. Daniel Elwell, the agency’s acting chief and perhaps the most tone-deaf bureaucrat in the federal government, insisted that there were “no systemic performance issues” and “no basis to order grounding the aircraft.”
On Wednesday, the FAA did an about-face and grounded the Max 8 and its sister, the Max 9, citing “new evidence” about the Ethiopian crash. By then, the agency had embarrassed itself and damaged its credibility.
The FAA, widely considered the world’s preeminent aviation agency, should err on the side of caution and public safety, not that of Boeing and the airlines. The agency did nothing until it could ignore the evidence and public pressure no longer.
The FAA’s mistakes actually go back several months.
According to the Dallas Morning News, five pilots in recent months had lodged complaints in a federal database about the Max 8’s flight-control system — the very system at issue in the two fatal crashes — and about the lack of training they received to fly the two-year-old plane. The FAA should have been aware of the complaints and acted on them.
Also, The New York Times reported Friday that Boeing had promised a software update after October’s Max 8 crash but never delivered it. The FAA should have been riding Boeing to complete the work and penalized the company for dragging its feet.
Perhaps this is the sclerosis that develops when a regulatory agency takes on too many former industry workers — in this case, onetime Boeing workers — as employees. The FAA must review its handling of the Max 8 and publicly address its failures. The agency can expect turbulence ahead.