BOEING staff potentially certified large sections of the two B737 Max 8 aircraft that crashed, separately claiming 346 lives within the space of five months.
The shocking revelation brings regulators under the scrutiny of the US Congress who criticized the Barack Obama administration for giving two much sway to Boeing appointed designators.
The acknowledgement comes in the wake of a 2012 move by former US President Obama who signed a three-year re-authorisation of the Federal Aviation Administration's authority that ordered sweeping changes to streamline the agency's aircraft certification process.
It specifically instructed the F administrator to consider how to expand the use of 'designees,' or company employees deputised with the power to certify the safety of broad swaths of new planes and components on the agency's behalf, Bloomberg reported.
'The bottom line of it in my opinion was speed,' said former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board Jim Hall. 'Boeing wanted to get their products out and they did not want the delays that a thorough certification process sometimes entails.'
Investigators have said the first crash in Indonesia last October may be linked to an anti-stall system that malfunctioned, and Ethiopian authorities saw similarities in the March 10 crash in that country.
US officials overseeing aviation safety, including F Acting Administrator Daniel Elwell, have been called to testify before the Senate Commerce Committee's aviation panel.
The hearing comes after Democratic lawmakers have pressed Mr Elwell for details about the F's certification of the 737 Max jets, including how much work was overseen by Boeing designees. Employees of companies such as Boeing have authority to sign off on many parts of an aircraft's design, but the F audits that work and retains authority over the most safety-critical systems.
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman Peter DeFazio has asked the US Transportation Department's internal watchdog to evaluate whether the F's reliance on corporate designees affected the agency's certification of the 737 Max's new anti-stall countermeasures and the F's decision to not revise pilot training and manuals for the Max.
Mr DeFazio, who voted against the 2012 re-authorisation, called on Boeing and F employees to share information about the F's certification programme and the 737 Max through a whistle-blower page on the committee's website.
Greater use of company-paid designees has been spurred in large part by lobbying from manufacturers, including Boeing, who complained that costly delays in winning agency approval for new planes risked putting American manufacturers at a competitive disadvantage to their global peers, Mr Hall said.
In 2015, Boeing was readying a trio of major aircraft redesigns: the B737 Max set, the B787-10 Dreamliner variant and 777X wide-body update. 'Each airplane will have to be certified by the F, and the large volume of this work poses a significant challenge for the agency,' Boeing Commercial Airplanes former president Ray Conner said at a 2015 House hearing.
'To meet the challenge, the F will need to continue its work to modernise its certification process,' Mr Conner said in his opening statement. He later cited 'accelerating the full use' of designees as a key way in which Congress could help the agency achieve that goal.
The F has voiced concerns to lawmakers in recent years that there could be consequences from reducing the agency's authority over the certification process, according to a person familiar with the agency's actions in recent years.
The F has used designees for decades but that practice grew after a 2005 agency rule that expanded the scope of certification work that they could perform and allowed more companies to operate designee programmes. Successive laws directed the F to streamline aircraft certification, including increased delegation to designees.
The B737 Max's roughly five-year certification adhered to the F's standard process and the agency has 'never allowed companies to police themselves or self-certify their aircraft' F spokesman Gregory Martin said in an email.
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The shocking revelation brings regulators under the scrutiny of the US Congress who criticized the Barack Obama administration for giving two much sway to Boeing appointed designators.
The acknowledgement comes in the wake of a 2012 move by former US President Obama who signed a three-year re-authorisation of the Federal Aviation Administration's authority that ordered sweeping changes to streamline the agency's aircraft certification process.
It specifically instructed the F administrator to consider how to expand the use of 'designees,' or company employees deputised with the power to certify the safety of broad swaths of new planes and components on the agency's behalf, Bloomberg reported.
'The bottom line of it in my opinion was speed,' said former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board Jim Hall. 'Boeing wanted to get their products out and they did not want the delays that a thorough certification process sometimes entails.'
Investigators have said the first crash in Indonesia last October may be linked to an anti-stall system that malfunctioned, and Ethiopian authorities saw similarities in the March 10 crash in that country.
US officials overseeing aviation safety, including F Acting Administrator Daniel Elwell, have been called to testify before the Senate Commerce Committee's aviation panel.
The hearing comes after Democratic lawmakers have pressed Mr Elwell for details about the F's certification of the 737 Max jets, including how much work was overseen by Boeing designees. Employees of companies such as Boeing have authority to sign off on many parts of an aircraft's design, but the F audits that work and retains authority over the most safety-critical systems.
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman Peter DeFazio has asked the US Transportation Department's internal watchdog to evaluate whether the F's reliance on corporate designees affected the agency's certification of the 737 Max's new anti-stall countermeasures and the F's decision to not revise pilot training and manuals for the Max.
Mr DeFazio, who voted against the 2012 re-authorisation, called on Boeing and F employees to share information about the F's certification programme and the 737 Max through a whistle-blower page on the committee's website.
Greater use of company-paid designees has been spurred in large part by lobbying from manufacturers, including Boeing, who complained that costly delays in winning agency approval for new planes risked putting American manufacturers at a competitive disadvantage to their global peers, Mr Hall said.
In 2015, Boeing was readying a trio of major aircraft redesigns: the B737 Max set, the B787-10 Dreamliner variant and 777X wide-body update. 'Each airplane will have to be certified by the F, and the large volume of this work poses a significant challenge for the agency,' Boeing Commercial Airplanes former president Ray Conner said at a 2015 House hearing.
'To meet the challenge, the F will need to continue its work to modernise its certification process,' Mr Conner said in his opening statement. He later cited 'accelerating the full use' of designees as a key way in which Congress could help the agency achieve that goal.
The F has voiced concerns to lawmakers in recent years that there could be consequences from reducing the agency's authority over the certification process, according to a person familiar with the agency's actions in recent years.
The F has used designees for decades but that practice grew after a 2005 agency rule that expanded the scope of certification work that they could perform and allowed more companies to operate designee programmes. Successive laws directed the F to streamline aircraft certification, including increased delegation to designees.
The B737 Max's roughly five-year certification adhered to the F's standard process and the agency has 'never allowed companies to police themselves or self-certify their aircraft' F spokesman Gregory Martin said in an email.
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