WASHINGTON (TND) — The director of the Federal Aviation Administration told lawmakers the agency is focused on ensuring travelers’ safety and maintaining their confidence in air travel amid an investigation to a door blowing loose during a flight and a series of “near misses” on runways that have drawn concerns.
Airlines have gone through several lumps since it returned to pre-pandemic levels with safety concerns and frequent delays and cancellations amid backlogs of pilot training, certifications and other issues that piled up due to pandemic-induced delays.
The latest trouble for the aviation industry and the FAA has been safety issues related to Boeing 737 Max 9 aircrafts after a door blew off an Alaska Airlines flight earlier this year. That incident led to the FAA grounding most Max 9s for weeks until the planes could be inspected, and further production of the jets was halted until the FAA is satisfied with Boeing’s safety procedures, which are increasingly under fire.
The National Transportation Safety Board released its preliminary report on last month’s door incident on Tuesday, which said missing bolts likely contributed to the hole being blown out of the aircraft.
According to the report, four bolts used to secure the panel that blew off were removed at a Boeing factory in Reston, Washington to repair damaged rivets on the plane’s body. When the door was reinstalled on the plane, it appeared to be missing some bolts and was still delivered to Alaska Airlines.
FAA administrator Michael Whitaker told lawmakers during a House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee hearing Tuesday that the government needs to change the way it is overseeing airline manufacturers and is sending more inspectors to Boeing plants that produce the 737s as part of a six-week audit.
“There have been issues in the past. They don't seem to be getting resolved, so we feel like we need to have a heightened level of oversight,” Whitaker said.
The FAA chief also encouraged Boeing employees to use an anonymous form on the FAA website or its hotline to report any safety concerns.
“Recent events, especially the Jan. 5 incident involving the Boeing 737 Max 9, have shown us we can’t become complacent when it comes to maintaining safety and public confidence in the aviation system,” Whitaker said.
Inspectors are searching for gaps in quality that may have led or contributed to the door plug bursting open during the January flight over Oregon, which lawmakers said the company needs to be held accountable for.
“Boeing must be held accountable because safety's first,” said Rep. Steve Cohen, ranking member on the subcommittee. “That needs to be made clear as this incident and the Max 8 crashes demonstrate, complacency is a luxury we cannot afford when it comes to aviation safety.
Whitaker said the current system, which relies on aircraft manufacturers to perform safety-related work on their products, clearly is not working due to the door incident and Max 8 crashes that killed 346 people in Indonesia and Ethiopia.
“The current system is not working because it is not delivering safe aircraft,” Whitaker said. “Maybe we need to look at the incentives to make sure safety is getting the appropriate first rung of consideration that it deserves.”
Tuesday’s hearing is far from the end of the government scrutiny of Boeing, with more hearings and meetings planned along with the increased oversight from regulators at the FAA.
Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun has also met with lawmakers who have pushed the company to do better when it comes to prioritizing the safety of the passengers who will fly on its jets.
“The American flying public and Boeing line workers deserve a culture of leadership at Boeing that puts safety ahead of profits,” Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. and chair of the Senate committee that oversees transportation, said in a statement after a meeting last month.
The hearing also comes as the bill authorizing funding for the FAA has not been signed into law amid a series of delays and deadline extensions on a number of pieces of must-pass legislation for Congress.
Lawmakers on the panel pushed for the Senate to up its FAA authorization bill, which they said was a necessary part of maintaining safety for travelers and accountability for plane manufacturers. The House passed its reauthorization bill last summer, but the Senate’s has been held up for months amid disagreements about pilot training requirements.
“Maintaining our gold standard of aviation safety is vital to the United States and should be an urgent national priority. But the only guarantee in our gold standard is that what got us there yesterday will not be what keeps us there tomorrow,” said Rep. Garret Graves, who chairs the subcommittee on aviation.
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