U.S. Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO), ranking member of the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, heralded findings in a newly issued report on the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) certification process for the Boeing 737 MAX.
“This unbiased, expert review clearly dispels the narrative that our aviation certification system is broken and must be completely rebuilt in the wake of the two 737 MAX accidents,” Rep. Graves said last week. “The Special Committee has concluded that neither our ‘extremely safe’ aviation system nor the FAA’s certification processes should be dismantled, and that doing so could jeopardize safety.”
The U.S. Secretary of Transportation in April 2019 created the Special Committee to Review the Federal Aviation Administration’s Aircraft Certification Process in response to the crashes of two Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft: one in Indonesia and one in Ethiopia that claimed a total of 346 lives.
The Special Committee was commissioned as an independent panel of aviation and safety experts to conduct an objective review of the FAA procedures for product certification and the processes followed by the FAA and Boeing during the certification of the 737 MAX 8, according to the Jan. 16 Official Report of the Special Committee to Review the Federal Aviation Administration’s Aircraft Certification Process.
The committee “found that while the FAA’s certification process is rigorous, robust and overseen by engineers, inspectors, test pilots, and managers committed to the primacy of safety, there are areas where improvement can be made,” according to the report.
Among several suggestions, the committee recommended that no action be taken “that would systematically dismantle the FAA’s current certification system and its use of delegated authority” because such action would undermine the collaboration and expertise that form the basis of the current certification system.
In turn, such action could jeopardize “the remarkable level of safety that has been attained in recent decades,” according to the report.
“Safety is the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s top priority, and in the wake of these tragic accidents we will strongly consider the Special Committee’s consensus-based recommendations to improve our aviation system,” said Sen. Graves.