In October of 2018, Lion Air Flight 610 crashed into the sea approximately 13 minutes after taking off from Soekarno–Hatta International Airport in Jakarta, Indonesia. The plane was relatively new, having been delivered to Lion Air only two months prior. All 189 passengers on the plane died in the crash. This was merely the first of two horrific 737 MAX crashes.
6 months later, in March of 2019, tragedy struck again when Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 took off from Addis Ababa Airport in Ethiopia. The plane crashed approximately 6 minutes after takeoff and killed all 157 souls on board. Similarly to the first accident, this was a relatively new airplane, only four months old.
The repercussions of these crashes are still being felt today, with three major US airlines having to ground their planes until further notice, including Southwest, United, and American. These airlines have been dealt considerable losses and are working closely with Boeing to reach agreements to settle lawsuits filed by the airlines’ respective pilots unions.
These two accidents continue to draw the attention of nations around the globe, prompting numerous investigations into the aircraft’s safety and performance. These investigations revealed a critical flaw in the design of the airplane. The new engines of the MAX were significantly larger than previous models, requiring that the engine be raised to ensure proper ground clearance. By raising the engines like this, the plane developed a tendency to raise it’s nose during flight. This tendency lead Boeing’s engineers to develop and install an all new Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) into the MAX’s software. This program would pitch the nose of the airplane downwards when the plane’s nose was at a sharp incline (like during takeoff). Designed to prevent a stall, this software would be the cause of both the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes. Most importantly though, Boeing would not inform pilots of MCAS’ existence or include it in any of the pilot training programs for the airplane.
So why was this error not corrected before the airplane was delivered to Boeing’s eager customers? It wasn’t corrected because the production and release of the 737 MAX was an incredibly rushed process. Boeing needed an efficient narrowbody plane that could compete with the newly released A320 Neo. So rather than designing a whole new plane, they decided to try to revamp the decades old 737 model in an attempt to speed up production. Additionally, the FAA licensed out the inspections that it was supposed to be performing to Boeing’s own engineers.
Although they may have simply been trying to speed up the often tedious and extraneous certification process, the consequences were disastrous. 346 innocent people died.
The choice was clearly made in an attempt to avoid the bureaucratic nightmare of the FAA Certification System and to further speed up production. This should never have been allowed. Boeing rushed out its plane purely for its own financial gain. This mistake proves that companies cannot be trusted to objectively perform government certification inspections on their own products. They are more motivated to rush through the process than to ensure the quality and safety of their products and customers.
Although some may be quick to blame Boeing’s disregard for safety and quality, the blame can also be attributed to the FAA’s overlook of proper procedure. By allowing Boeing to exercise control over their own certifications, the FAA opened the door for the mistakes that would follow. Their negligence may not have been the direct cause of the accidents, but if they had chosen to take action, it is possible that the accidents could’ve been avoided.
Airlines outside of the US, especially those in developing countries, hardly ever hold their pilots to the same rigorous standards as seen those enforced by the FAA. Some proponents of Boeing cite that the pilots in both of the accidents were unable to recognize or correct the problem. This, however, does not alleviate Boeing’s negligence and carelessness. If the company had disclosed the existence of the MCAS system, this claim would be much more reasonable and defensible. But this is not what happened, Boeing keeping the new MCAS software to itself if the most damning evidence in the case to be made against it.
The FAA needs to be more involved in it’s own certification process in order to ensure that its rigorous safety and quality standards are met. If the FAA had enforced its policies and acted on its oversight abilities, the 737 MAX crashes could have very well been avoided. The fact that these standards were not met help expose the appalling lack of accountability and credibility throughout the aviation industry.
To fix this kind of problem, the FAA needs to be restructured into a more effective hierarchy that can efficiently process inspections of new aircraft while also maintaining the highest of quality standards. This kind of restructuring will require an overhaul of the current FAA and a reevaluation of the effectiveness of the agency.
And now, in December of 2019, 9 months after the second crash of the MAX and the ensuing bureaucratic recertification process, the MAX is still grounded worldwide. The most generous estimates say that the plane could once again take to the skies in early 2020. On Wednesday December 10th, during a congressional hearing of the House Transportation
Committee, a document was revealed that the FAA had analyzed that there could be as many as 15 additional crashes of the airplane over its lifetime. Yet despite this analysis, the FAA decided not to ground the airplane following the first crash. This fatal mistake on the part of of the FAA reveals the lack of accountability that spreads not just in companies like Boeing, but also in government agencies themselves. This kind of revelation reveals that the FAA isn’t doing it’s job correctly and is allowing crucial parts of it’s own safety regulations to go unenforced.
In the future, if a company like Boeing wants to speed up their certification process, they should work with the FAA in a cooperative effort instead of working against each other.
