Title: Boeing 737 Max: What’s Happened After the 2 Deadly Crashes - The New York Times
Headings: Boeing 737 Max: What’s Happened After the 2 Deadly Crashes
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Boeing 737 Max: What’s Happened After the 2 Deadly Crashes
With hundreds dead, the popular 737 Max jet remains grounded as investigators examine how an automated system on the planes contributed to the crashes.
Investigators have faulted Boeing and the F.A.A. over how parts of the 737 Max was designed and certified.
Boeing is under financial pressure as the impact of the crisis takes a toll on the company.
“We don’t have to have 300-plus people die every time to find out that something is unreliable.”
The 737 Max is a legacy of the past, the latest update of a decades-old airplane.
Until the two crashes, the Max was Boeing’s most successful plane ever.
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Content: By Mika Gröndahl | Source: Boeing
See how MCAS may have helped cause the two crashes »
• A multi-agency task force known as the Joint Authorities Technical Review concluded that Boeing failed to adequately explain to regulators how MCAS worked, and the Federal Aviation Administration lacked the capability to effectively analyze much of what Boeing did share about the new plane. • The National Transportation Safety Board, one of the agencies that has been investigating Boeing, also faulted Boeing and called for the company and federal regulators to revamp the way they assess the risk of key systems on planes, like emergency notifications in the cockpit. The Justice Department has also opened a criminal inquiry, and is being assisted by the F.B.I.
• Nearly one year to the day after the Lion Air crash, Indonesian investigators came to similar conclusions: They blamed Boeing for introducing MCAS without adequately instructing airlines and their crews about how to override the software should it malfunction. “They completely discounted the human factor component, the startle effect, the tsunami of alerts in a system that we had no knowledge of that was powerful, relentless and terrifying in the end,”
— Dennis Tajer, the spokesman for the American Airlines pilots union, said of Boeing. • A senior engineer at Boeing said the company, to keep costs down, rejected a safety system that could have reduced the risks that contributed to the two deadly crashes, according to an internal complaint he submitted this year. • The chief technical pilot for the Max complained to a colleague in 2016 that MCAS had “egregious” issues — eight months after he had asked the F.A.A. about removing mention of the new automated system from the pilot’s manual. • The F.A.A., which in recent years has delegated more authority to companies like Boeing, in particular remains under scrutiny. New York Times investigations revealed that key officials at the F.A.A. never fully reviewed the final version of the MCAS software and that Boeing helped craft legislation related to approving designs to its liking.