Thu, Feb 13, 2020
Requested By Congress Following Boeing 737 MAX Accidents
On October 29, 2018, Lion Air Flight 610 crashed shortly after departing Jakarta, Indonesia, resulting in 189 fatalities. Five months later, on March 10, 2019, Ethiopian Air Flight 302 crashed shortly after departing Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, resulting in 157 fatalities, including 8 Americans. Both flights involved the Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft, which was certified by the FAA in March 2017.
These fatal accidents have drawn widespread attention to FAA’s oversight and certification practices, including the Agency’s process for establishing pilot training requirements for the aircraft. For example, at the time of the October 2018 accident, pilots were reportedly unaware of the new automation system—known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS)—that Boeing included on the MAX aircraft to improve aircraft performance. According to the Lion Air accident report, the pilots’ responses to erroneous activations of MCAS contributed to the crash, raising international concerns about the role of pilot training.
In light of these concerns, the Chairmen and the Ranking Members of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and its Subcommittee on Aviation requested that we review domestic and international pilot training standards related to commercial passenger aircraft, including the use of automation. Accordingly, our audit objectives will be to (1) evaluate FAA’s process for establishing pilot training requirements for U.S. and foreign air carriers operating U.S.-certificated large passenger aircraft, and (2) review international civil aviation authorities’ requirements for air carrier pilot training regarding the use of flight deck automation.
(Source: DOT OIG)
More News
The Industry Continues to be Rocked By Some Questionable Operations Recent investigations and a great deal of data has resulted in ANN’s SportPlane Resource Guide’s rep>[...]
Make Sure You NEVER Miss A New Story From Aero-News Network Do you ever feel like you never see posts from a certain person or page on Facebook or Instagram? Here’s how you c>[...]
Visual Approach Slope Indicator (VASI) An airport lighting facility providing vertical visual approach slope guidance to aircraft during approach to landing by radiating a directio>[...]
Airport Marking Aids Markings used on runway and taxiway surfaces to identify a specific runway, a runway threshold, a centerline, a hold line, etc. A runway should be marked in ac>[...]
Aero Linx: The Skyhawk Association The Skyhawk Association is a non-profit organization founded by former Skyhawk Pilots which is open to anyone with an affinity for the A-4 Skyhaw>[...]