House votes to speed approval of safety fixes to Boeing jets despite critics

A sweeping piece of aviation legislation passed last week by the U.S. House includes an obscure amendment that allows airliners to continue flying with partial safety upgrades, even though they don’t fully meet current safety standards.

As passed by the House on July 20, the FAA Reauthorization Act allows the Federal Aviation Administration to approve certain interim design changes without taking public input. Boeing and other airplane manufacturers lobbied for the change.

As a safeguard, the amendment requires the FAA to set a deadline “by which all noncompliant conditions related to the design change must be addressed.”

Aerospace industry officials who pushed for the amendment say it’s in the interests of the flying public to deploy safety upgrades faster.

But some critics argue the proposed fast-track approval could degrade the level of scrutiny of safety-related changes by shortening the FAA review process and not allowing public and industry experts to review changes before they are approved.

Michael Stumo, a sharp critic of Boeing’s safety culture ever since his 24-year-old daughter Samya Rose Stumo died in the 2019 crash of an Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max, said the new approval process lacks transparency and invites waivers of design changes behind closed doors.

“The exclusive reason for this is to avoid the public and anyone else having a say or seeing what’s going on,” said Stumo. “They just want to make it secret.”

And while the new fast-track process should add some near-term safety enhancements, the concern is that this could allow Boeing to delay costly longer-term upgrades needed to bring the jets fully into compliance with regulations.

Former FAA safety engineer Mike Dostert, who provided his analysis of the proposed amendment to congressional staff, said the speedier approval process in the FAA bill “is not about safety; it’s about reducing costs.”

In an effort to address concerns, House Transportation Committee staff added, with unanimous bipartisan support, a series of safeguards before the amendment was finalized, including the requirement that the FAA must set deadlines by which all safety standards are met.

The Senate considers the FAA Reauthorization Act next, and Congress is targeting it to become law in September when the agency’s current authorization expires.

Peter Prowitt, chief operating officer at the Aerospace Industries Association, said that, when an extensive safety redesign is required, the goal is to deploy some interim improvements quickly rather than waiting for the entire design package to be ready.

“This is a way for us to accelerate the implementation of safety measures without having to wait for a more extended process,” Prowitt said.

“The FAA administrator would have the discretion to decide.”

Prowitt, whose association represents airplane, jet engine and component manufacturers, also noted a U.S. competitiveness rationale: A similar accelerated approval process for interim design changes is already available to Airbus from Europe’s FAA counterpart, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, or EASA.

Hassan Shahidi, CEO of the Flight Safety Foundation, a well-regarded organization focused on safety advocacy, said the new process can be acceptable as long as the FAA is required to conduct a complete risk assessment.

Under the comparable European fast-track process, EASA requires such a timetable.

Dostert, the former FAA safety engineer, said the addition of the deadline is “a real positive improvement” over what Boeing and the industry asked for. Still, he remains wary that the inserted safeguards may not be enforceable in practice.

“Where are the consequences if they don’t meet the deadline?” he asked.

AIRLINERS THAT DON’T COMPLY WITH FAA STANDARDS

At the root of the request for this amendment is a perhaps startling fact: Although Boeing commercial jetliners are certified before entering service as meeting all FAA safety regulations, the reality is that the planes in the sky do not.

Both the 737 Max and the 787 Dreamliner, Boeing’s two most important jets, do not fully comply with FAA safety standards.

For example, the 787 does not meet the lightning protection standard designed to prevent a wing fuel tank explosion that the FAA stipulated as a special condition when the largely carbon composite jet was certified to carry passengers.

Though the jet has a very effective system to reduce flammability in the wing tank — to reduce flammable vapor, inert gas is pumped in as fuel is used up during flight — it does not have the required level of protection against ignition sources inside the wing.

And the 737 Max has approaching 200 noncompliant systems, according to people familiar with the details.

“The certification of a new aircraft is based on the most complete and reliable information available at the time,” the FAA explained in a statement.

“All aircraft — regardless of the make or model — experience issues after they are certified.”

“It is important to note that not every noncompliance is an unsafe condition,” the FAA statement adds.

The FAA said that whether it’s a discovery of a new problem or simply that an airplane manufacturer has identified a design change that can improve safety, it “takes appropriate, risk-based action … to ensure those issues are addressed.”

Any urgent threat to flight safety is dealt with through an Emergency Airworthiness Directive, mandating the airlines take immediate action.

The AIA’s Prowitt said safety is not a fixed, accomplished fact in the aerospace industry, but a “never-ending objective” that requires constant improvement.

The Flight Safety Foundation’s Shahidi likens this to problems discovered in autos after they are delivered to customers.

Some are serious enough to trigger immediate recalls, while others can be fixed on a more extended schedule.

“There are always noncompliance issues that come up,” he said, and all must be reported to the regulator.

The FAA is aware of the below-standard lightning protection on the 787’s wing fuel tank but assesses it as not an immediate safety risk.

In March 2019, against the opposition of front-line FAA safety engineers, the agency’s management let Boeing remove certain elements of the jet’s lightning protection on the wings that were proving costly for airlines to maintain.

In October that year, the FAA demanded that Boeing perform a detailed assessment of “the overall fuel tank explosion risk from lightning-related ignition sources” for all 787 aircraft.

Boeing said it completed that risk assessment in 2021, “showing no safety issue.” Last year, the FAA accepted this assessment.

Nevertheless, even with no immediate safety issue, there is a longer-term risk and Boeing is obliged to bring its jets into full compliance with current safety standards.

Critics complain that, with no FAA mandate to move expeditiously, Boeing too often allows its planes to continue flying indefinitely without such fixes.

“There is continuing noncompliance in many areas as Boeing slow-walks getting to full compliance for years.

“And the FAA does not cause them to finally fix by a date certain,” said Stumo. He added that the proposed amendment could enable “continuing noncompliance.”

ADDRESSING RISKS AFTER SERIOUS INCIDENTS

Former FAA safety engineer Dostert cites how the regulator, after a 2016 uncontained engine blowout on a Boeing 737NG jet operated by Southwest, delayed ordering inspections on similar planes after assurances from engine-maker CFM that the incident was an anomaly.

FAA safety regulations require that an engine be designed to contain metal pieces in the event of a broken fan blade blowout. When it happened again on another Southwest jet in 2018, metal shrapnel smashed open a cabin window and killed a passenger.

“We are allowing Boeing to produce products with a bunch of noncompliances. Some are trivial. But a lot become an issue over time,” said Dostert.

The aftermath of the fatal Southwest 737 incident illustrates how, even when a jet doesn’t comply with an important safety standard, the FAA tries to address the risk while allowing the affected jets to continue to fly.

After the 2018 accident, the FAA imposed strict engine maintenance inspection intervals to find any cracked fan blades. That ensured there was no immediate risk of a repetition.

Meanwhile, Boeing got a time-limited exemption to keep flying the 737NG model while engineers worked to strengthen the engine casing.

Just last week, Boeing confirmed in a filing with the FAA that its redesign of the engine casing is ready. At the same time, it asked for a 17-month extension to work on details that will prevent maintenance mechanics leaving the engine access doors unlatched.

In lobbying for the new fast-track process to be included in the FAA bill, Boeing cited the similar case of three fan blade failures on 777s with Pratt &Whitney engines — the last of which rained engine parts on a Denver suburb in 2021.