MAX’s Return Delayed by FAA Reevaluation of 737 Safety Procedures

[ozaub]

Notwithstanding pilots knowing they could handle MCAS better and engineers knowing they could have designed it better, the fundamental question is how was a new model of the 737 certificated which is intrinsically more dangerous than its predecessors?
What changed was the establishment of “Organization Designation Authorization Program” by which FAA abdicates most of its certification function.
ODA is briefly explained in WSJ video at

You Tube

In the clip acting Administrator Elwell claims that ODA saves FAA $1.8 billion. That’s not true. According to Final Rule at https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/...f/05-20470.pdf ODA was predicted to save just over $12m.
FAA also claims ODA does not amount to self-certification. Again, not true.
ODA originated in a National Research Council paper “Improving the Continued Airworthiness of Civil Aircraft: A Strategy for the FAA's Aircraft Certification Service (1998)”. https://www.nap.edu/read/6265/chapter/1
A Committee comprised predominantly of retired engineers from major manufacturers unashamedly recommended that FAA should concentrate resources on continued airworthiness rather than certification.
From the Executive Summary
“It is critically important that the FAA and AIR conduct business in a new fashion with regard to aircraft certification and continued airworthiness. As an essential first step, AIR should revise its budget and manpower allocations to better reflect its mission priorities, which are as follows:
1. continued airworthiness and other activities related to continued operational safety
2. rulemaking and policy development
3. certification
The vast majority of aircraft that will operate during the next 10 years have either already been manufactured or will be manufactured to already certificated design specifications. Monitoring the safety of operating aircraft is essential to obtain a true picture of safety, to detect and resolve problems as soon as possible, and to validate airworthiness standards.Improvements in standards for initial type certification are typically based on lessons learned from the continued airworthiness process. Therefore, making the continued airworthiness process more effective is essential to improving safety in the near term and providing the foundation for long-term improvements. The primacy of this task is acknowledged in the FAA’s stated priorities. Currently, however, AIR’s type certification activities receive more resources than the other two areas combined.”
What could go wrong?