FAA predicted 15 737 Max crashes
Troubled jet may not be cleared until next year
As the process of recertifying the Boeing 737 Max is sure to stretch into 2020, a House committee released documents Wednesday showing the Federal Aviation Administration predicted the troubled jet had the potential of being involved in 15 crashes over its service life if changes weren’t made.
In revealing the document, Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, noted that the report came after the first crash of the 737 Max last year. Despite the finding, the plane model was allowed to keep flying. It was grounded only after a second crash in March. Together, the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines accidents killed 346 passengers and crew.
Against that backdrop, FAA Administrator Stephen Dickson indicated that his agency is in no hurry to get the 737 Max flying again. He told CNBC that the 737 Max won’t be cleared to fly again until next year, which would dash Boeing’s hopes to get the troubled jetliner recertified to fly in the USA this month.
The FAA analysis, conducted in December 2018 shortly after the first crash, showed that over the lifetime of the Boeing 737 Max, it would be likely to be involved in 15.4 fatal crashes if no changes were made to the flight control system, based on an eventual expected fleet of 4,800 aircraft.
“I am not aware of any other certified transport aircraft that has such an analysis,” DeFazio said. He said similar analyses on other aircraft have predicted 10 or fewer fatal accidents. He questioned “why the aircraft wasn’t grounded once this analysis was done as opposed to allowing the plane to fly while Boeing worked on a fix.”
Dickson, who took over the FAA four months ago, didn’t address whether he believed the Max should have been grounded after the first accident. DeFazio
asked that Dickson look more closely at the prediction.
As for when the plane will return to service, Dickson sidestepped naming a target date in his prepared remarks before his committee appearance.
“The process is not guided by a calendar or schedule,” Dickson said. “Safety is the driving consideration.”
The 737 Max won’t be in service again until the FAA determines a proposed software fix and pilot retraining program are adequate, he said. The flight system changes will have to be certified in a test flight. A Joint Operations Evaluation Board, which includes members from Canada, Europe and Brazil, needs to sign off on revised training.
Documents must be reviewed by the
“I am not aware of any other certified transport aircraft that has such an analysis.” Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore.
FAA and a technical advisory board of members from several agencies. The FAA will need to issue an airworthiness notification and publish a directive listing all the changes.
The FAA is evaluating outside reports on the 737 Max, awaiting an independent committee’s review of the proposed changes and expecting a report from a special committee under Transportation
Secretary Elaine Chao.
As one of the final steps, Dickson, a former Air Force and commercial airline pilot, vowed to fly the 737 Max himself.
He insists on being “satisfied that I would put my own family on it without a second thought,” he wrote in his statement.
The crashes and subsequent grounding of the jetliner plunged Boeing into crisis. It has tried to come up with revisions, most of them focusing on a software fix. The change would center on modifying the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS.
The MCAS was blamed for pushing the plane’s nose down repeatedly as pilots fought to keep it in the air on both the Lion Air and Ethiopian flights.