Page 5 - AT

A5
U.S. NEWS Tuesday 24 sepTember 2019
FAA chief seeks support for

agency’s review of Boeing jet

By DAVID KOENIG the same conditions. Just ment. In Montreal, Dickson
AP Airlines Writer a few weeks ago, the Euro- said, “Accidents in complex
The head of the Federal pean agency was suggest- systems rarely are the result
Aviation Administration is ing that it might make de- of a single cause. Rather,
defending his agency’s mands on Boeing beyond they often happen due to
approval of a troubled what the company is plan- a complex chain of events
Boeing plane while leav- ning, including requiring and interaction between
ing open the possibility of additional sensors, which man and machine.” Safety In this April 10, 2019, file photo a Boeing 737 MAX 8 airplane
changing how the agency could delay the plane’s re- improvements should cov- being built for Spain-based Air Europa rolls toward takeoff
certifies aircraft. turn in Europe. er aircraft design, produc- before a test flight at Boeing Field in Seattle.
Stephen Dickson made The Wall Street Journal re- tion, maintenance and op- Associated Press
the comments Monday in ported that in a draft re- eration, he said. correct to attribute that to bad pilots,’” said Brian Ka-
Montreal, where he and port, Indonesian authori- Some of Dickson’s com- any single item.” bateck, a Los Angeles law-
other top FAA officials ties investigating the Oct. ments were strikingly similar Some critics viewed that as yer suing Boeing on behalf
briefed aviation regula- 29 crash of a Lion Air Max to language used by Boe- blaming pilots in two devel- of families who lost relatives
tors from around the world off the coast of Java have ing CEO Dennis Muilen- oping countries. in the Lion Air crash.
on the agency’s review homed in on design and burg in the weeks after the “Boeing’s strategy may be, Separately, a $50 million
of changes that Boeing is oversight failures. The news- March 10 crash of an Ethio- ‘This wouldn’t have hap- fund for compensating
making to the 737 Max. The paper, citing anonymous pian Airlines Max soon after pened in the United States families of people killed in
FAA said a senior Boeing sources, said investigators takeoff from Addis Ababa. or the Western world be- crashes of Boeing 737 Max
official also gave a techni- are also pointing out pilot “As in most accidents, cause the pilots are so well- planes began taking claims
cal briefing. Dickson, who errors and faulty mainte- there are a chain of events trained,’ and, ‘Yeah, it may Monday, with a deadline
was sworn in last month, nance as factors. that occurred,” Muilenburg have been a problem with of Dec. 31 for families to
said again that the FAA Boeing declined to com- said in late April. “It’s not the aircraft, but it was also submit applications.q
has no timetable for con-
sidering Boeing’s changes
to the Max. The grounding
of the plane has increased
scrutiny around the FAA’s
oversight of companies it
regulates, Dickson said. He
said FAA took the same
thorough approach that
has consistently produced
safe planes.
But, he added, the pro-
cess and regulations that
FAA uses “are continuously
evolving.” He invited other
regulators to make sug-
gestions on FAA’s review
of the Max and its certifi-
cation system. The plane
has been grounded since
March after the second of
two accidents that killed
346 people in Indonesia
and Ethiopia. Chicago-
based Boeing is nearing
completion of its changes
to the plane, including an
update to an automated
flight-control system impli-
cated in both crashes.
The FAA was the last regu-
lator to ground the plane
and is likely to be the first
to let it fly again. Howev-
er, the likelihood of a long
gap between FAA action
and approval by other reg-
ulators seems to be easing,
which would be a victory
for Dickson and the FAA.
Patrick Ky, head of the Euro-
pean Union Aviation Safety
Agency, told a French avi-
ation publication that a Eu-
ropean decision could fol-
low within a few days of an
FAA approval and under