The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said on Tuesday that it has established a new policy for aircraft certification. The policy stipulates that “major” adjustments must be made to the design of essential flight control systems, such as the one that was implicated in two deadly incidents involving Boeing (BA.N.) 737 MAX aircraft in 2018 and 2019.
In late 2020, Congress passed sweeping legislation to reform how the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certifies new airplanes. This legislation required manufacturers to disclose certain safety-critical information to the FAA. This information included information on systems that manipulate flight controls without direct pilot input or commands. This was done in response to the crashes that resulted in the deaths of 346 people.
Also, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said on Tuesday that it will be releasing additional guidelines to airplane makers on identifying information vital to safety. The FAA stated that these new initiatives will “improve aircraft certification safety.”
Boeing failed to provide the Federal Aviation Administration with essential information on a safety system known as MCAS. This system was associated with deadly accidents and was intended to address the MAX’s tendency to tip up.
Boeing has stated that it continues “to work transparently with the FAA to ensure we continue to meet all requirements in the certification process.” Airbus (AIR.PA), a Canadian aircraft manufacturer, did not immediately comment.
“The FAA failed in its oversight of Boeing and its certification of the aircraft,” according to a study submitted to the United States House of Representatives. The report stated that Boeing did not identify the Multi-Camera Air System (MCAS) as a safety-critical system, which would have resulted in increased scrutiny from the FAA during the certification process.
The highest-selling airliner was grounded for twenty months due to the crashes, which resulted in compensation, manufacturing expenses, and fines totaling more than twenty billion dollars for Boeing.
Both the smaller MAX 7 and the bigger MAX 10 are now under consideration by the FAA as potential candidates for certification as further variations of the MAX.
In July, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced that it would establish milestones throughout the certification process to “assess whether any design changes to airplane systems should be considered novel or unusual and therefore require additional scrutiny.”
One year ago, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) gave Boeing a regulatory compliance program extension shorter than the planemaker had requested. This was done to guarantee that the business makes “required improvements.”
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