US aviation regulator boosting Boeing oversight
By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is ramping up oversight of Boeing and plans to add nearly 300 employees to its safety office following two fatal 737 MAX crashes in recent years, the agency's acting head said on Wednesday.
Acting FAA Administrator Billy Nolen told the Senate Commerce Committee that the aviation safety office, which currently has 7,489 employees, plans to have 7,775 by the end of September. The committee held a hearing on FAA safety reforms that Congress directed in 2020 after the 737 MAX crashes killed 346 people in 2018 and 2019.
The FAA currently has 107 full-time staff members providing regulatory oversight on Boeing, up from 82 just a couple of years ago, Nolen said.
Additionally, he said the FAA has augmented its Boeing oversight team with the equivalent of 35 full-time employees from across the agency to support oversight activities.
Boeing declined to comment.
A 2020 House of Representatives report said the two fatal 737 MAX crashes "were the horrific culmination of a series of faulty technical assumptions by Boeing’s engineers, a lack of transparency on the part of Boeing’s management, and grossly insufficient oversight by the FAA."
Nolen told reporters the agency is continuing the review tow new versions of the MAX -- the MAX 7 and 737 10 -- for certification but declined to offer a timetable for when they might be approved. "Safety will dictate that timeline," Nolen said.
Nolen said he met with Boeing last month. "We've had a good level of responsiveness with Boeing," Nolen said. "They are committed to the process."
Boeing in 2021 agreed to pay $6.6 million in penalties after the FAA said it failed to comply with a 2015 safety agreement and cited other safety concerns.
The FAA has closely scrutinized Boeing's quality and other issues in recent years. The FAA continues to inspect each 737 MAX and 787 aircraft before an "airworthiness certificate is issued and cleared for delivery." Typically the FAA delegates airplane ticketing authority to the manufacturer.
During the hearing, Republican Senator J.D. Vance raised questions about two recent Boeing 737 MAX flights and asked whether the 737 MAX was actually safe after the FAA mandated safety and software updates before lifting a 20-month grounding in late 2020.
"I can say categorically that the 737 MAX airplane is safe," said Nolen.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Josie Kao)
