Boeing crashes show need to focus on high risks, not checklist standards

Re: “Boeing lapse also belongs to lawmakers,” (TNT editorial, 11/8).

After the Ethiopian and Lion Air crashes, it is clear America’s aviation system needs improvement at every level: manufacturers, regulators and congressional oversight.

I was glad to see that FAA Administrator Stephen Dickson recently committed to “moving toward a more holistic versus transactional, item-by-item approach to aircraft certification.”

It’s clear that approving a checklist of standards is not the same as the FAA staying ahead of the latest innovations and applying a holistic approach to certifying aircraft systems so they know what they are regulating when they give their final approval.

Software requires a lot of testing. And when software is the basis for an aviation system that takes data from hardware sensors on the outside of an airplane and delivers automated dive responses to the plane’s cockpit, that should be deemed a complex, high-risk system.

As such, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System should have been given more robust testing and oversight.

Investigations determined that MCAS was a key factor in the Boeing 737 Max 8 crashes, yet Boeing did not consider it to be a complex, high-risk system. Nor did Boeing do enough testing. That was wrong.

The FAA also did not consider MCAS to be a complex, high-risk system and failed to do both proper oversight and testing. That was wrong, too.

Directing the FAA to identify the highest-risk aviation systems so regulators will spend the largest amount of their time reviewing them is something lots of people, including myself, have recommended.

In 2015, the U.S. Department of Transportation Inspector General had an entire report on the need for high-risk review systems at the FAA.

The report states that “oversight team findings are often not related to high-risk issues — e.g., issues that could directly impact the potential loss of critical systems or other safety concerns… FAA’s focus was often on paperwork – not on safety-critical items.”

That’s why I authored legislation to make sure the FAA’s resources are used where needed most: on high-risk systems critical to the safe flight of an aircraft, instead of “paperwork” items.

This legislation would require the FAA to produce new flight deck automation rules, develop new tools on human response time standards and require manufacturers to have safety-management systems in place.

It would also create an FAA “Center of Excellence” focused on flight automation and human factors in commercial aircraft.

I will be introducing additional legislation in the coming months.

Congress must reform the FAA’s delegation authority, because it’s the agency’s job – not that of any private entity – to give final approval that airplanes are safe to fly.

In his March 2019 statement before Congress, FAA’s Acting Administrator Dan Elwell said “the FAA retains strict oversight authority.”

It must be clear: Every step of approving an aircraft requires diligent oversight. Congress needs to make sure the FAA does its job correctly. And that it has the tools, funding, robust engineering and oversight structure to accomplish this.

Everyone – especially the families of the victims of the Ethiopian and Lion Air crashes – is counting on us.

This story was originally published November 23, 2019 at 1:52 PM with the headline "Boeing crashes show need to focus on high risks, not checklist standards."