NEW YORK (AFP) – The United States (US) Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), sharply criticised after the crashes of two Boeing planes in 2018 and 2019, is again being dragged into a maelstrom surrounding the major American aerospace manufacturer.
The dramatic mid-flight blowout on January 5 of a fuselage panel on an Alaska Airlines plane precipitated the departures of a series of top Boeing officials – including chief executive officer Dave Calhoun, who is set to step down at year’s end – and the reduced production of the 737 MAX.
But as Boeing faces multiple inquiries and audits in the US and abroad, it has repeatedly assured critics that it is working “with full transparency and under the oversight” of FAA regulators.
And the FAA, which itself has seen four bosses come and go since August 2019, has been unable to evade a share of the responsibility.
“The FAA has to be held accountable as well,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, who heads a subcommittee investigating Boeing’s safety practices.
After the panel incident in January, the agency dispatched a team to inspect Boeing factories, and gave the firm 90 days to provide an “action plan” to address several problem areas.
“I think the FAA is doing the best that they can and that they have greatly improved their surveillance of Boeing” since the 2018 and 2019 crashes off Indonesia and in Ethiopia, which killed 346 people, said Jeff Guzzetti, an aviation consultant and former head of the agency’s investigation division.
“But they did fail to catch production problems,” he said, noting that for decades the FAA relied on manufacturers themselves to “self-report problems”.
The FAA, short on money and personnel, has long delegated the job of quality assurance to pre-approved employees of the airplane manufacturers.
That creates “a conflict of interest”, said president of the non-profit Flight Safety Foundation Hassan Shahidi.
“There needs to be a shift where the FAA has more direct responsibility for oversight,” he said.
Like Guzzetti, he said he has seen some improvement but believes the FAA must dispatch more of its own inspectors – and not delegate so much regulatory authority to manufacturers.
“This is going to take some time and it will need vigilance,” Shahidi added.
But the agency “is on the right track now”, said managing director of the AeroDynamic Advisory consultancy Richard Aboulafia.
“It’s nothing that can’t be corrected with additional oversight and resources,” he said.
