Originally Posted by
BluSdUp
The way I see it it is to approve or disapprove whatever Boeing and FAA has cooked up this time.
After all it was China EASA and Canada that grounded the Max and not the FAA.
Having the FAA in the group invalidates anything the Group finds.
The Question with a big Q is can we trust FAA?
Answer is: Not for now.
So as Canada put it bluntly: Whatever FAA certify , we will also have to certify independently!
No more trusting the FAA, for now.
I would also add that there is such a practical pressure. ( What if it is permanently grounded?)
And economical/political pressure . ( Boeing existence, ultimately!)
That leads me to think this so-called group is rather a joke.
Just to clarify - Boeing certifies with the FAA and EASA. THEN, any countries were the aircraft has been sold and are not represented by FAA and EASA come into play. At that point, typically, the regulators from the country in question will meet with Boeing and determine what level of involvement they want before approving the aircraft for their country. This involvement can be anything from a cursory review and rubber stamp, to a complete review of the aircraft and cert that takes months. For example, for the 747-8, we had numerous meetings with the Russian authorities - both in Everett and Moscow. Same thing with the Chinese (I was part of a team of ~50 Boeing people who spent a week in Shanghai meeting with the CAAC). Before each set of meetings they provided a list of questions and areas where they wanted additional information/documentation (this part can naturally get tricky as much of the documentation is proprietary and/or export limited - and both Russian and China have domestic aircraft producers who would like nothing better than access to some of Boeing's design information). Ultimately the Russians and Chinese were satisfied and the aircraft was certified by their regulators. OTOH, from what I could tell Korea appeared to pretty much rubber stamp the previous FAA/EASA cert - at least in the case of Propulsion (and recall the engine was completely new for the 747-8).
Years ago, we had roughly a week of meetings with the Indonesians (in Everett) to get their approval of the 747-400 after Garuda bought some. Several years later another Indonesian operator picked up some used 747-400s (Lion Air IIRC) and they came back to approve 'the differences' since Garuda had bought CF6-80C2, and the used 747s had PW4000s (although I suspect the PW4000 differences meeting was really more about their having an expense paid trip to the US to do some shopping than any real concern over the differences between the GE and Pratt engines).