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Europe Will Not Accept US Verdict On 737 Max Safety (bbc.com) 115

Europe's aviation safety watchdog will not accept a U.S. verdict on whether Boeing's troubled 737 Max is safe. Instead, the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) will run its own tests on the plane before approving a return to commercial flights. The BBC reports: The 737 Max has been grounded since March after two fatal crashes. But Easa told the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) there would be "no delegation" on safety approval in a letter sent on April 1. Patrick Ky, Easa's chief executive, revealed a list of four conditions given to the U.S. authorities in a presentation to the European Parliament's committee on transport and tourism on Monday.

Europe's tough stance is a blow to Boeing's hopes of a rapid return to service for the 737 Max, and is also a significant break with the established international practice of aviation regulators accepting each other's standards. A spokesperson for the FAA said it had "a transparent and collaborative relationship with other civil aviation authorities as we continue our review of changes to software on the Boeing 737 Max." "Our first priority is safety, and we have set no timeframe for when the work will be completed. Each government will make its own decision to return the aircraft to service, based on a thorough safety assessment."

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Europe Will Not Accept US Verdict On 737 Max Safety

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  • by 0100010001010011 ( 652467 ) on Thursday September 05, 2019 @07:29PM (#59163698)

    Or I should say the FAA and the companies they were supposed to certify pinkie swearing that the company did it correctly.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Well, sure.. But this is a two way street kind of agreement, so the EASA may force Airbus into getting FAA approvals now. I doubt it will come to that... But hey. If Boeing gets the FAA to sign off, what's the EASA going to require the FAA didn't? Somehow, I'm guessing "not much" because the FAA is pissed at Boeing right now for messing up a good thing and will have put the MAX through a paper chase to certify every rivet on up has been properly engineered and vetted. What's the EASA going to look at the
      • by zkiwi34 ( 974563 ) on Thursday September 05, 2019 @09:48PM (#59164020)

        I think the point is the FAA isnâ(TM)t/wasnâ(TM)t doing anything but rather trusting the manufacturers

        • by ebvwfbw ( 864834 )

          Mean time they'd give guys like me shit because there's a little surface rust on a screw.
          My plane was down for two years over a bullshit issue. $6,000 later and it's all documented now.

          If they didn't have bad regulatory practices they wouldn't have any regulatory practices at all.

      • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 05, 2019 @11:36PM (#59164198)
        The problem is previously the FAA DID NOT do due diligence, they let Boeing self certify. Then they delayed in grounding the planes. FAA completely failed in their duties here.
        • by rtb61 ( 674572 ) on Friday September 06, 2019 @02:37AM (#59164422) Homepage

          The result, all US regulatory authorities are no longer trusted and that means all tests for US companies must now be done in other countries as well, all those companies can now thank Boeing and the FAA for those additional costs, which will last for the foreseeable future, billions down a the corruption black hole, Boeings cheats and shortcut has now become every other major US corporation who require regulatory approval for their products cost. Think about it, due to corruption US regulatory authorities are no longer trusted in the rest of the world, except for corrupt countries, now how safe does it make you feel buying in the US, approved, oh yeah snark, the bribes were paid.

          This is strictly third world shite, seriously the USA has third world grade regulatory authorities, well done US government, be proud of your corruption and it's costs.

        • is that unlike European Flight Safety agencies - for example the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) in the UK, the FAA has a complex dual remit.

          Not only is it responsible for air transport safety, it is also responsible for promoting the use of air transport .

          It seems and in fact is preposterous that the Federal government would create an arrangement like this, because before the FAA lift a finger to do *anything*, they are immediately in a situation of self-conflict. If the Federal government want to ac
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        when the Max went into service it was certified as safe.
        After the first crash. FAA continued to certify it as safe and no issue but pilot error
        After the second crash. FAA continued to certify it as safe while other countries began grounding it
        finally after pressure they finally acknowledge a major issue and ground them and we also find they had let Boeing self certify
        And you ask why EASA might not have a lot of faith in FAA's rigorous vetting process?
        • by cusco ( 717999 )

          This is the IEEE article that clarified what many of the issues were.

          https://spectrum.ieee.org/aero... [ieee.org]

          How the Boeing 737 Max Disaster Looks to a Software Developer
          Design shortcuts meant to make a new plane seem like an old, familiar one are to blame

      • by jabuzz ( 182671 ) on Friday September 06, 2019 @06:04AM (#59164636) Homepage

        They could but what would the grounds be? The EASA are basically saying based on the shenanigans the the FAA and Boeing did with the 737 Max, they no longer trust the FAA to safely certify the plane.

        What grounds does the USA/FAA have to say that they have lost trust in the EASA? That would be none at all, so they would look like a petulant toddler if they where to go down the route. That said Trump does behave like a petulant toddler a lot of the time.

        My guess is that many third party countries are not going to trust the FAA on this one and will also wait till the EASA clears it too.

        • Is it just me or has the US lost all credibility? A regulatory body cannot allow a commercial entity to self regulate itself ... PERIOD!

          Siv

      • by gmack ( 197796 ) <gmack@@@innerfire...net> on Friday September 06, 2019 @06:38AM (#59164698) Homepage Journal

        What's the EASA going to look at the FAA didn't?

        Everyone is acting like the MCAS was the only problem with the Max but hat was only the flaw that brought two planes down. There were also issues involving the tail control cables that the FAA overruled their own engineers on to keep Boeing on schedule. Unfortunatly the FAA engineers both quit and now the FAA doesn't have any experienced engineers capable of properly understanding the problem.

    • by nnull ( 1148259 )

      I'd be reluctant to believe any US agency as well. Our whole damn industry has taken accrediting agencies, such as IAS, as more valuable than an engineer with over 30 years of experience. I get annoyed with accreditation agencies when it's some 18 year old punk telling me how I'm supposed to do things. And I get annoyed with companies who like to flaunt it around like it's their biggest success for them, when all they're doing is paying a fee to have their stupid accreditation when their products and employ

    • It would be good and refreshing to do the same with products approved by the EASA as well. It's not as if they don't do the same thing. Double checking is a good thing---especially in the realm of pinky-swears.

      • by cusco ( 717999 )

        My understanding (please correct me if I'm wrong) is that the EASA still have actual engineers on staff and still actually test hardware/software. The FAA, because of budget cuts designed to strangle regulatory agencies made them accept self-certification from the manufacturers themselves, just has to rely on Boeing's word.

  • by williamyf ( 227051 ) on Thursday September 05, 2019 @07:36PM (#59163714)

    The HuaWei the CAAC will want to follow is to put the 737Max through a long and tourtuous safety validation check...

    I predict said checks will last more or less the same time than the trade negotiations will.

    • On a similar note, there will be high tariffs on German beer and Belgian chocolate until they let the airplane fly.

      • Kind of meh since only Tuifly uses the 737max.

  • Agencies charged with public safety often come under the umbrella of lobby cash.
  • by WillAffleckUW ( 858324 ) on Thursday September 05, 2019 @07:54PM (#59163750) Homepage Journal

    Trust us, these official documents scribbled on with Sharpies show that the 737 Max is as safe as the underwater state of Alabama.

    What?

    Of course we didn't fake the tests!

  • by isj ( 453011 ) on Thursday September 05, 2019 @07:55PM (#59163760) Homepage

    An article that has some of the details is: https://simpleflying.com/easa-... [simpleflying.com]

    Some of the details are quite ... interesting ...:

    [EASA requires] Training for crew: The agency demands all Boeing 737 MAX flight crews are adequately trained

    As well as this, EASA wants Boeing to demonstrate the stability of the MAX during unusual and extreme maneuvers

    So does that mean that FAA did not require this?

    • by isj ( 453011 )

      One other: https://www.ainonline.com/avia... [ainonline.com]

      which has this interesting tidbit: [...] international panel of safety technicians scrutinizing how the FAA allowed the airframer to oversee parts of its own certification.

    • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

      by drnb ( 2434720 )

      [EASA requires] Training for crew: The agency demands all Boeing 737 MAX flight crews are adequately trained As well as this, EASA wants Boeing to demonstrate the stability of the MAX during unusual and extreme maneuvers So does that mean that FAA did not require this?

      Given some of the Airbus crashes I don't think the EASA used to require these either.

      • by stellar707 ( 6217268 ) on Thursday September 05, 2019 @08:57PM (#59163924)
        On the airbus you simply turn off 2 of the 3 ADRs. It's a really really really simple "memory item" by virtue of proper design in the first place. We now use this procedure and we do practice it in the simulator, albeit it's extremely easy to accomplish. The difficult part is sometimes recognizing the degraded condition but the airbus does degrade from "normal law" to "alternate law" and ultimately to "direct law", which turns it into a convention aircraft like a 737Max. So yes, Airbus has similar issues but the better design led to a super simple solution. Also, Airbus aircraft inherently have at least 2 and mostly 3 redundant sensor systems. The Boeing system had only 1 sensor going to the system and the backup was the pilot. The Boeing product doesn't tell you anything.. it simply has a large collection of idiot lights and raw data instruments. Diagnosis can be hard if not impossible.
        • by drnb ( 2434720 )

          On the airbus you simply turn off 2 of the 3 ADRs.

          I'm referring to other Airbus crashes where crews were too dependent on the autopilot and not really trained/practiced to cope with the hardware malfunction they were confronted with. Flight originating in South America, crew failed to manually control plane after sensor inputs gave autopilot bad data? Something like that.

          • by The Cynical Critic ( 1294574 ) on Friday September 06, 2019 @07:08AM (#59164758)
            You're probably referring to Air France Flight 447.

            In that case the most junior pilot of the 3 pilot flight crew completely misjudged the situation, started trying to fly the plane on his own without following the basic captain-first officer cooperation procedures all pilots are taught and just flew the plane into the sea. Eventually the third and most experienced pilot, who had been resting when the issue arose, come into the cockpit, immediately realize the first officer was flying the plane into the sea, order him to get out of his seat pronto and tried to recover the plane. Unfortunately for everyone on board and their loved ones the moron first officer had put the nose too far down and picked up too much speed for the experienced pilot to be able to recover.

            Really, the issue was a really bad misjudgment made by basically a trainee pilot who acted in complete disregard for airmanship and was able to do that because he completely failed to communicate with the captain who, had he known, obviously would have stopped him. Verbally informing your captain/first officer that you're taking manual control or something equally drastic is considered one of the most basic things in standard piloting procedures and he didn't do anything of the sort. Instead he left his captain to figure out why the autopilot had just thrown it's hands up (it got data so wildly inconsistent that it had no choice but to give up) and still seemed to be flying the plane (which was actually the co-pilot).

            As awful as this may seem, the reality is that every time there is an accident where the autopilot is a factor they study if heavy handed automation makes flying safer or more dangerous. Every single time they come to the conclusion that when you sum it all up, heavy handed automation is a very clear net positive as it prevents a lot more accidents than the number of accidents it contributes to.
            • Yes, the junior pilot did the exact wrong thing by constantly yanking back on the stick (the aircraft was actually 35+ degrees nose-up, falling out of the sky at a 45-degree slope), which was 100% the primary cause of the incident, but there were definitely some design flaws that allowed the situation to continue without either senior pilot realizing what was actually happening:

              - The particular model of pitot tube on 447 was known to have icing problems and was recommended to be replaced, but not directed
              -

    • by anarcobra ( 1551067 ) on Friday September 06, 2019 @03:33AM (#59164490)
      The FAA can "require" lots of things, but when it turns out that all their certification comes down to asking boeing if their plane meets standards, then their word doesn't count for shit.
    • by cusco ( 717999 )

      Yep. Boeing didn't even tell the airlines about the issues affecting the MCAS, nor include in their pilot training materials what to do in the case of bad sensor data (turn the MCAS off). In one of the crashes the pilots turned the MCAS off on their own, recovered the aircraft, and when they turned it back on again it dove them into the ground.

  • by FunkSoulBrother ( 140893 ) on Thursday September 05, 2019 @08:02PM (#59163784)

    If you're at all rational and facts-based, you can't trust our federal government, especially if the conclusion could be in the interest of their egos or their corporate donors.

  • Lying (Score:5, Insightful)

    by duke_cheetah2003 ( 862933 ) on Thursday September 05, 2019 @08:14PM (#59163814) Homepage

    This is rather the expected result when nearly everything coming out of the US Government these days is clouded by lies, deceit and misinformation.

    Good on you Europe. We earned your lack of trust. Well deserved.

  • by stellar707 ( 6217268 ) on Thursday September 05, 2019 @08:14PM (#59163816)
    I'm a pilot at a major American airline (not "American Airlines"). I'm glad to hear Europe is doing this because the FAA keeps failing to regulate important safety issues: 1) crew rest issues 2) decreasing seat and bathroom size 3) sick people on aircraft 4) fumes in the cabin from organophosphates and other neurotoxins in the oil getting into the bleed air system (aerotoxic.org) We've almost given up documenting fumes in the cabin because nothing positive ever happens. The company simply explains episodes away as passengers using nail polish, eating food, and so on. They really don't care unless someone ends up in the hospital in critical care (which has happened). Some airlines are even using a different oil that has less aeromatic properties, which is like taking the odor element out of natural gas so that you don't smell it. Those odorous chemicals are in there so that you can detect neurotoxic compounds in the air!
    • The toxic cabin air problem seems to be fairly international. I just watched a piece on it on Australian 60 Minutes. And it's a problem with all manufacturers, since they all get air into the cabin in the same way.

      I don't understand how it can be cheaper to add that complexity to the engines as opposed to just having some kind of louvered scoop, but whatever.

      • by jabuzz ( 182671 )

        The issue is heating the air. Generally speaking air at 30,000ft is rather too cold to just scoop into the cabin.

        • Turbine engines can easily be designed to be generators. That doesn't seem like a hard problem.

          • You've just blown a large below-waterline hole in your weight reduction argument.

            Or are you talking about the main engines of the aircraft, which already incorporate significant generators for the existing airline systems. To which you've just added a substantial power load.

  • No surprise (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Midnight Thunder ( 17205 ) on Thursday September 05, 2019 @08:36PM (#59163870) Homepage Journal

    Given that it was found out that the FAA was allowing Boeing to self certify, then it was the FAA that created the breach of trust. It may have been okay had it not been for the accident, delayed response and ignorance about an important change.

    The FAA is going to have work hard to show their certification process is reliable and to earn the trust back.

    If the European equivalent of the FAA had allowed Airbus to self certify, then the FAA would likely be doing the same thing, especially if it allowed an accident to happen.

    • Re:No surprise (Score:4, Informative)

      by stellar707 ( 6217268 ) on Thursday September 05, 2019 @08:52PM (#59163910)
      The FAA is allowing self-certification as part of the Safety Management System (SMS) initiative. It's because there aren't enough FAA personnel with the proper expertise to oversee the manufacturers. Instead, they want the manufacturer to set up a certification process then the FAA audits the certification process, not the certification itself. It's a force multiplier. The problem is that many FAA employees are typical government workers - career bureaucrats that you would not ordinarily hire in industry because they don't have sufficient education or skills. Take a look at the credentials of the FAA employee in charge of the 737Max's MCAS system.
      • The FAA is allowing self-certification as part of the Safety Management System (SMS) initiative. It's because there aren't enough FAA personnel with the proper expertise to oversee the manufacturers. Instead, they want the manufacturer to set up a certification process then the FAA audits the certification process, not the certification itself. It's a force multiplier. The problem is that many FAA employees are typical government workers - career bureaucrats that you would not ordinarily hire in industry because they don't have sufficient education or skills. Take a look at the credentials of the FAA employee in charge of the 737Max's MCAS system.

        I had not considered that and makes sense. Given this scenario and also the limitations of the self-certification, do you have nay suggestion on how FAA could ensure a better process here?

      • by cusco ( 717999 )

        The FAA **USED TO** have personnel on staff that were competent to test these systems, both the hardware and software. Four decades of Republican budget strangulation and interference has ensured that most of the talented people have left because of layoffs, salary freezes, and demoralization. You'll find that in most of the regulatory and fiscal agencies much of the staff left are older paper-shufflers who are just trying to hang on until they can retire. This is the result of deliberate actions by the

    • Self certification i am sure was no secret, everyone knew including Europe

    • You mean, like Volkswagen and other EU companies have been self certifying (well, self testing allegedly according to carefully-conformed testing parameters with little to do with real-world performances) emissions for decades.

      I certainly agree that too much critical testing data has been left to the supervised parties to provide...but you might want to exit that glass house before chucking those moralistic stones.

  • While there are certain levels of reciprocity, isn’t it normal for each agency to be responsible for their own certification of an aircraft? Slightly more rigor now, but not totally unprecedented.

    As long as the planes are certified to common standards I have no issue... but it can get slippery quickly.

  • From the fine article:

    FAA approval would allow US airlines to fly the aircraft, but European operators - including Norwegian Air - would need Easa clearance before returning it to commercial service.

    It certainly seems logical that an airline based in the USA could fly within the USA by meeting FAA requirements. What this bit from the article implies is that the airlines would be permitted to fly to European destinations even before the aircraft met European safety standards. Is that right?

    It looks like a 737 MAX jet is capable of transatlantic flight but how often is this type used for that kind of service?

    • Just a small point. Airlines around the world fly Boeing planes

      • Just a small point. Airlines around the world fly Boeing planes

        Of course. That was pointed out in the article.

        They stated that in the past an FAA certification for being airworthy was good enough to fly in Europe. Now they say in this case of the 737 MAX that Boeing getting this airframe certified for being airworthy by the FAA was not good enough any more, this means this airframe cannot fly when operated by the Norwegian airlines. So, if a 737 MAX is considered airworthy by the FAA but not by the European authorities, is operated by an airline based in the USA, wo

        • by jabuzz ( 182671 )

          Want to fly it in European Airspace then it needs to be certified by the EASA. I think Norwegian is specifically mentioned because they are not in the EU but as they are in the EEA they are covered under the same rules.

          The UK is currently covered by the EASA, come 31st of October it is anyone's guess. Might be the EASA might be the CAA though the later has not done certification in decades and is likely trusted by nobody.

        • by bogeskov ( 63797 )

          I do believe the reason Norwegian is singled out is that it's the european company with the highest rate of 737 MAX 8s. Accordign to https://www.norwegian.com/uk/a... [norwegian.com] it's 18 of 172 aircrafts.

  • FAA Salaries (Score:4, Interesting)

    by CohibaVancouver ( 864662 ) on Thursday September 05, 2019 @10:06PM (#59164064)
    The Daily podcast recently had a good program on the issue.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/0... [nytimes.com]

    In a nutshell, the FAA offloaded a lot of the certifications to Boeing, because the FAA lacked the resources to do it themselves. The FAA can't afford to pay the salaries that aeronautical engineers command, so they don't have the staff to properly certify the planes.
    • All sorts of regulatory agencies are getting budgets cut. It makes sense that the FAA would offload as much oversight as they can. And the "pro business" politicians who have infiltrated both parties think that "self regulation" is great -- of course, they probably KNOW it will be abused, as it has in the past.

      The IRS has a smaller budget and fewer agents and are not able to afford the expert accountants they need for complex auditing. The result; there's a big shift to auditing people making less than $50,

      • by cusco ( 717999 )

        In the case of the IRS this was Newter Gingrich's pet project. He learned that even while it might be impossible to eliminate popular agencies like the FAA and EPA if he could reduce their enforcement budget to essentially zero it would still have the desired effect. Much of the money the IRS brought in through its enforcement arm went back into the agency to be spent largely on further audits, Gingrich and Co. changed that so now it all goes into the General Fund and Congress has full authority over the

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday September 05, 2019 @10:50PM (#59164158)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by cusco ( 717999 )

      Boeing has run out of room to store them in the Seattle area, they're parking them at fields all over the country now.

  • trust is earnt (Score:5, Informative)

    by gravewax ( 4772409 ) on Thursday September 05, 2019 @11:19PM (#59164190)
    "Our first priority is safety"
    The problem being up until you finally grounded them (after everyone else had already done so) it was blatantly obvious this was NOT their first priority, why should other governments trust them now?
    • by tramp ( 68773 )
      Yup. Trust comes in walking but leaves at a horse. Or better phrased leaves with the speed of a racecar.
  • The decision to let the industry self certify and regulate itself earned this.
  • by Revek ( 133289 )

    Perhaps a second opinion is always needed in the case of new aircraft.

  • It simply isn't a thing at this spatiotemporal juncture

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