A US Senate committee has warned of serious weaknesses in the way that aircraft were built by American aircraft manufacturer Boeing.
It also criticised the way that the manufacturer’s aircraft were certified safe to fly by the US regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation report was based on the testimony of seven industry whistle-blowers from the industry.
It was in response to two Boeing 737 Max crashes, which killed 346 people: a Lion Air flight in Indonesia in October 2018 and an Ethiopian Airlines flight in March 2019.
Boeing told the BBC it was reviewing the report and said: “Boeing teammates are encouraged to speak up whenever they have safety or quality concerns.”
It also said that many issues in the report “have been previously publicised, and Boeing has worked to address them with oversight” by the FAA.
The FAA told the BBC that it “takes all whistle-blower allegations seriously and does not tolerate retaliation against those who raise safety concerns”.
The Aviation Safety Whistleblower Report highlighted allegations that the FAA’s safety certification process “suffers from undue pressure on line engineers and production staff”.
It said there were conflicts of interest, such as where the same engineer had been responsible for preparing equipment for official tests, as well as carrying out those same tests.
It claimed that engineers with specific technical expertise were ignored or sidelined during the development of both Boeing’s 737 Max and of the 787 Dreamliner.
Furthermore, it said the FAA failed to provide a sufficient number of safety engineers to the FAA office in Seattle overseeing the Boeing Organization Designation Authorisation (ODA).
The committee recommended the FAA should immediately strengthen direct supervision of the ODA delegation system, and take measures to address undue pressure at Boeing ODA.
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