Ethiopian airliner down in Africa

[A0283]

FYI the Senate hearing just ended after about 2hrs30minutes.

Senator Cruz chairing ... with member Senator Sinema...
Witnesses Messrs Elwell (FAA) has pilot experience on multiple types but not 737, he has flown aircraft with and without AoA indicators,
Sumwalt (NSTB) has commercial pilot experience on the (Flintstone versions of) the 737,
Scovel (DoT IG),
Senators - at least one had pilot experience, another some aviation software development experience.

Some notes after listening through it. Beware - these are my notes and not an official transcript - and is not chronological or complete. I try to give an impression and not an opinion here.

What was interesting is that the senators quoted multiple newspaper (NYT, Reuters, Dallas Morning News, Washington Post, Seattle Times,....) stories to support their questions. A number of the newspapers reports were used by pprune members as input and discussed on this forum.

The issue of AoA - indication, warning light, etc got a lot of attention.

Mr Elwell regularly repeated that the FAA "is the global golden standard of aviation safety". Also regularly repeated that the FAA "is fact based and data driven". Mr Elwell did not answer any YES/NO question. Some of the Senators question were quitely asked, others quite agressive. Mr Elwell repeatedly briefed the president and the DoT secretary on the MAX developments, he briefed the president on his intent of grounding, the president then went to a press conference and talked about grounding, Mr Elwell refused to talk about his conversations with the president.
He repeatedly referred to using the Flight Standardisation Board, how international that was, and how the FSB did not come up with any issues.
Appears Mr Elwell's opinion is that the runaway procedure was enough to cover what happened and that every pilot (in the US) is trained and trained on that, and that it is a memory items, so no need to take up a manual in the cockpit. Which suggests that every pilot would have recognized it as such.
Mr Elwell clearly stated that he sees MCAS as a subsystem of the existing STS system. Suggesting that it is not directly visible to the pilot and therefore not directly trained. And also mentiond a number of times that MCAS only operated in a very thin part of the flight envelope. So MCAS was 'already in the NG under STS'.
He stated that delegation has been around since the 1920's and that 'ODA has been around for 60 years'. His estimate was IIRC that skipping ODA would require 10,000 staff and 1.8 billion dollars. And that the EU 'does more ODA'. On ODA he stated that the shift from enforcement (the tool) to compliance (the end game) was a good one.
He stated that after 57,000 flights in the US there have been no reported MCAS issues. And that SWAPA, APA and ALPA in the US leaders all told him they thought the 737 MAX was safe for US pilots to fly. And that he used that information to decide not to ground the MAX. Also after reading all ASRS 24 reports which in his view were not about MCAS. And review of FDR data of all flights.
In his view AoA indicates an energy state, and opined that pilots have other means to determine that.
He called the Boeing 737 MAX a FBW aircraft a number of times during the hearing.

Mr Sumwalt stated that the cooperation with the Ethiopian authorities till now was good and open. He expected a preliminary Ethiopian report (in the 30 days timeframe I guess) - but indicated the Ethiopians are in the lead.

Mr Scovel discussed a number of earlier IG reports that had some serious issues on the FAA and oversight including ODA (IG report of 2015). Normally an IG investigation takes 10 months, Mr Scovel suggested this one might take a bit longer. The IG are working on a report on the Southwest issues with 737 engines, report expected about August 2019, while the NTSB expects its Final Report in November 2019.

A group of at least 16 senators are drafting a Bill that state that safety critical items may not be sold as optional. Mr Elwell in his way states that this is already so. So this is an interesting point, is this a misunderstanding or a difference of opinion.
A number of senators talk about 'shaken consumer confidence'. Some go much further and suggest the FAA has lost its 'gold standard position'...
A number of 'regulatory capture' and 'whistle blower' questions were asked but not really answered.