European Regulators Won More 737 MAX Concessions from Boeing Than FAA (Update)
January 28 2021 - 6:37PM
Dow Jones News
By Andy Pasztor
Before European air-safety regulators allowed Boeing Co.'s 737
MAX jets back in the air, they extracted concessions from the
company ranging from modified engineering procedures to revised
designs affecting future MAX versions.
The changes, laid out in a document released by the European
Union Aviation Safety Agency, in some cases goes beyond those
required by the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA approved
the 737 MAX fleet to resume commercial service in the U.S two
months ago. EASA took the same step for European airspace on
Wednesday, followed by regulators in the U.K.
A portion of the changes expected to play out in the future were
already public, but other arrangements that were negotiated behind
the scenes were revealed along with EASA's final decision
Wednesday.
EASA said it released the document as part of its overall
strategy to be transparent and reassure the public about the safety
of the 737 MAX.
Two of the planes crashed less than five months apart, taking
346 lives and prompting a world-wide grounding in March 2019.
Accident investigators and regulators have determined that an
automated flight-control feature, called MCAS, misfired and put
both aircraft into fatal nosedives.
"We carried out our own flight tests and simulator sessions" to
demonstrate the safety of hardware, software and pilot-training
fixes previously mandated by the FAA, EASA said in a separate press
release. In addition, the release said, "at our insistence, Boeing
also has committed to work to enhance the aircraft still further"
so that in the future it can reach an even higher level of
safety.
"We will address all regulatory requirements, technical needs
and testing requirements," a Boeing spokesman said.
The report begins by noting that "passengers' confidence in
aviation safety has been thoroughly rattled" as a result of the
dual crashes, and goes on to detail commitments Boeing made to
EASA.
Those commitments include reassessing within 12 months certain
cockpit design features on future MAX models to help pilots avoid
distraction when dealing with multiple, cascading system
failures.
In addition, according to the report, "EASA has requested and
agreed with Boeing [on] a set of improvements" to the company's
overall safety-assessment process. Updated assessments must be
presented to EASA and verified during certification of the next 737
MAX model.
EASA also determined that lightning-protection features for some
onboard systems didn't comply with mandatory standards, though
agency experts concluded they didn't affect the MCAS. Boeing agreed
to study the electrical issues further.
Other noncritical items deemed unsafe by EASA will be handled
under agreements with Boeing for design and process improvements
after the current fleet returns to service.
The report concludes with criticism of Boeing's engineering and
design practices. The fatal problems with MCAS weren't an isolated
case of such procedural lapses, the report asserts. It refers to
the discovery of several systemic issues that will be addressed in
future MAX models to prevent a repeat of design failures. The
report didn't elaborate.
EASA's moves come amid friction between agency officials and
their FAA counterparts over the design of Boeing's delayed 777X
model. Regulatory approval for that long-range aircraft has been
held up partly by disagreements between the two agencies regarding
specifics of redundant flight-control systems, according to one
person briefed on the details.
EASA is making a broader push, spurred by Boeing's 737 MAX
errors, to assert greater control over safety approvals of new
aircraft models built in the U.S. EASA chief Patrick Ky told
European lawmakers earlier this week that he and his team are
determined to have a larger say in FAA decisions certifying the
safety of new jetliners approved and built across the Atlantic.
As part of its 737 MAX ungrounding decision, EASA also allowed
pilots to pull a circuit breaker if necessary, in order to silence
an alert that vibrates the plane's control column and can distract
flight crews during emergencies, including the two that brought
down the MAX jets in 2018 and 2019.
The FAA has rejected that type of pilot intervention, even if a
crew concluded the alert was erroneous. In a November report, the
FAA said pilots could have trouble identifying or reaching the
correct circuit breaker, or could pull the wrong one and
unwittingly introduce new hazards.
Write to Andy Pasztor at andy.pasztor@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 28, 2021 18:22 ET (23:22 GMT)
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