Transportation Committee’s findings blame design errors, flawed aircraft certification system for fatal errors

House Democrats issued a sharply worded report revealing new details of how the combination of Boeing Co. BA 4.19% design errors, lax government oversight and lack of transparency by the plane maker and regulators set the stage for two fatal 737 MAX crashes.

The 238-page document, written by the majority staff of the House Transportation Committee, calls into question whether the plane maker or the Federal Aviation Administration has fully incorporated essential safety lessons, despite a global grounding of the MAX fleet since March 2019.

After an 18-month investigation, the report, released Wednesday, concludes that Boeing’s travails stemmed partly from a reluctance to admit mistakes and “point to a company culture that is in serious need of a safety reset.”

“We have learned many hard lessons as a company from the accidents of Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Flight 302, and from the mistakes we have made,” Boeing said in a written response to the report, referring to the two fatal MAX crashes. The Chicago-based aerospace giant added: “We have been hard at work strengthening our safety culture and rebuilding trust with our customers, regulators, and the flying public.”

The findings released Wednesday also questioned whether pending changes inside the FAA would be sufficient to end what the report describes as fundamentally inadequate government reviews of new aircraft designs. Engineering and management errors on the MAX, according to the report, reflect a flawed approval process in which agency managers often undercut the authority of lower-level FAA engineers, giving industry undue influence over the process.

Excerpt from WSJ
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