Also Raises Questions About Lightning Protection For The Dreamliner

House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Peter DeFazio (D-OR), and Chair of the Subcommittee on Aviation Rick Larsen (D-WA) recently sent a letter to FAA administrator Stephen Dickson questioning the way the FAA made decisions on two safety-related items with potentially catastrophic consequences: rudder cable protection on the Boeing 737 MAX and lightning protection for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. The letter comes amid the Committee’s Ongoing Investigation into the Certification of the 737 MAX.

“As you know, our Committee has been investigating the design and development of Boeing's 737 MAX, the FAA's certification processes, and related issues. While our investigation is ongoing, we are concerned about two additional safety issues about which we have received detailed information. Both appear to involve serious, potentially catastrophic safety concerns raised by FAA technical specialists that FAA management ultimately overruled after Boeing objected. These incidents raise questions about how the agency weighs the validity of safety issues raised by its own experts compared to objections raised by the aircraft manufacturers the FAA is supposed to oversee,” the members wrote.

"The two cases regarding the 737 MAXand the 787 Dreamliner suggest that the opinions and expert advice of the FAA's safety and technical experts are being circumvented or sidelined while the interests of Boeing are being elevated by FAA senior management. There may be reasonable explanations for FAA management overriding the decisions of its own technical experts at the behest of the manufacturer it regulates, but we would like a clear accounting of those explanations in the two instances described above," the letter concluded.

The Committee has been investigating the design, development and certification of the Boeing 737 MAX since mid-March.

(Source: Congressman DeFazio news release. Image from file)

FMI: defazio.house.gov