FAA’s ‘cozy’ relationship with Boeing at issue again after Alaska Air blowout

Following the crashes of two 737 MAX jets that left more than 300 people dead and Boeing’s reputation for safety in tatters, Congress held probing hearings that unmasked limp and malleable federal oversight of how American planes are built.

While the flying public enjoyed the safest decade on record until the crashes five years ago, Boeing capitalized by persistently convincing the Federal Aviation Administration to narrow its scrutiny of the company’s factory floor, former employees of the company and its chief regulator told The Seattle Times. With each passing year, the FAA ceded a little more of its authority by deputizing manufacturers like Boeing to police the quality of their own work.

Congress held hearings in 2020 investigating the twinned tragedies in Ethiopia and Indonesia, crashes caused primarily by engineering mistakes at Boeing. The panel reached the conclusion that Boeing — not the FAA — was comfortably piloting its own regulatory fate, and demanded a course correction.

Read the full article by Patrick Malone of The Seattle Times on Heraldnet