Relaxed FAA oversight at root of Boeing’s crisis
SEATTLE — In the days after the first crash of Boeing’s 737 Max, engineers at the Federal Aviation Administration came to a troubling realization: They didn’t fully understand the automated system that helped send the plane into a nosedive, killing everyone on board.
Engineers at the agency scoured their files for information about the system designed to help avoid stalls. They didn’t find much. Regulators had never independently assessed the risks of the dangerous software known as MCAS when they approved the plane in 2017.
More than a dozen current and former employees at the FAA and Boeing who spoke with the New York Times described a broken regulatory process that effectively neutered the oversight authority of the agency.
The regulator had been passing off routine tasks to manufacturers for years, with the goal of freeing up specialists to focus on the most important safety concerns. But on the Max, the regulator handed nearly complete control to Boeing, leaving some key agency officials in the dark about important systems like MCAS, according to the current and former employees.
While the agency’s flawed oversight of the Boeing 737 Max has attracted much scrutiny since the first crash in October and a second one in March, a Times investigation revealed previously unreported details about weaknesses in the regulatory process that compromised the safety of the plane.
The company performed its own assessments of the system, which were not stress-tested by the regulator. Turnover at the agency left two relatively inexperienced engineers overseeing Boeing’s early work on the system.
The FAA eventually handed over responsibility for approval of MCAS to the manufacturer. After that, Boeing didn’t have to share the details of the system with the two agency engineers. They weren’t aware of its intricacies, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.
Late in the development of the Max, Boeing decided to expand the use of MCAS, to ensure the plane flew smoothly. The new, riskier version relied on a single sensor and could push down the nose of the plane by a much larger amount.
Boeing did not submit a formal review of MCAS after the overhaul. It wasn’t required by FAA rules. An engineering test pilot at the regulator knew about the changes, according to an agency official. But his job was to evaluate the way the plane flew, not to determine the safety of the system.
The agency ultimately certified the jet as safe, required little training for pilots and allowed the plane to keep flying until a second deadly Max crash, less than five months after the first.
The plane remains grounded as regulators await a fix from Boeing. If the ban persists much longer, Boeing said this past week, it could be forced to halt production.
The FAA and Boeing have defended the plane’s certification, saying they followed proper procedures and adhered to the highest standards.
“The agency’s certification processes are well-established and have consistently produced safe aircraft designs,” the regulator said in a statement Friday. “The 737 Max certification program involved 110,000 hours of work on the part of FAA personnel, including flying or supporting 297 test flights.”
Boeing said “the FAA’s rigor and regulatory leadership has driven ever-increasing levels of safety over the decades,” adding that “the 737 Max met the FAA’s stringent standards and requirements as it was certified through the FAA’s processes.”
Boeing needed the approval process on the Max to go swiftly. Months behind its rival Airbus, the company was racing to finish the plane, a more fuel-efficient version of its best-selling 737.
The regulator’s hands-off approach was pivotal. At crucial moments in the Max’s development, the agency operated in the background, mainly monitoring Boeing’s progress and checking paperwork. The nation’s largest aerospace manufacturer, Boeing was treated as a client, with FAA officials making decisions based on the company’s deadlines and budget.
It has long been a cozy relationship. Top agency officials have shuffled between the government and the industry.
During the Max certification, senior leaders at the FAA sometimes overruled their own staff members’ recommendations after Boeing pushed back. For safety reasons, many agency engineers wanted Boeing to redesign a pair of cables, part of a major system unrelated to MCAS. The company resisted, and FAA managers took Boeing’s side, according to internal agency documents.