The Times They Are A-Changin'
Big Pistons Forever: "wasting a huge opportunity to reset a broken certification and oversight regime from first principles".
If my scorecard is at least mostly correct, the investigatory line-up is: the DoT Inspector General (and a Sec'y of Transp. Advisory panel); the recently headlining Senate amd House committees; the NTSB (report in); the JATR (report in); the DOJ criminal inquiry; and the two Annex 13 processes (KNKT report in).
Plus, the looming discovery onslaught of the liability cases on behalf of the victims.
Plus, what is looking certain to be intensively creative and incisive discovery by SWAPA in its litigation against Boeing (particularly if the case gets removed to federal district court).
With all this activity - and even after allowing for the large dose of well-deserved cynicism and skepticism to be directed at official Washington - the need for change in the certification process, and conceivably the certification standards in the FARs (the aeronautics and piloting authorities may agree or not as to this need beyond just the process), appears quite too loud and clear this time around for large reform not to take place.
The Boeing Board has taken some decisions already, with tea leaves pretty clearly indicating much more ahead.
And ultimately, the place held by ICAO principles (under the Chicago Convention of 1944) and Annexes and SARPs could be revealed as ripe for overhaul. The legality of FAA grounding the Ten in '79 was challenged successfully in the British Caledonian case. But now, particularly - and pointedly - the prima facie validity of a CAA type certification has been pierced by the JATR. And the outputs of other players on the scorecard are likely to widen the piercing.
Notanatp: relating to an email emerging at House hearing...
earlier in the thread I attempted to draw attention to a kind of play-by-play sequence of events (meetings), communications and other information, each constituting a step in the company's total eventual decision process. Some of these will have been internal to the company, some will have involved FAA participation. Your questions as to several types of informational items relating to this one subject email are, indeed, spot on.
(For purposes of especially civil liability, how responsibility gets divided between company/ODA and federal agency could get really interesting, given that appearance if not reality of "regulatory capture" has been noted quite publicly.)