Originally Posted by safetypee
Excellent link safetypee, not finished yet, but the quote below is the most damning indictment of how bad the Boeing/FAA cabal had fallen into "not giving a f#ck" about the safety of passengers and crew.
Knowingly happy to allow another predicted 15+ accidents of the same type to occur over the lifetime of the airframe:
US Regulators Allowed Boeing 737 Max to Keep Flying After First Crash Despite FAA Analysis Predicting More. Only an organisation with complete belief in their own omnipotence and immunity from meaningful consequence would contemplate such a repugnant and craven view of the world.
page 11
Support for Human Factors Assessments in Aircraft Certification
The FAA also has a significant role in the design and development process for aircraft technology due to
its responsibility as the certifying body. In that it is always possible for design teams to make errors in their
assumptions and processes, or for cost and schedule goals to subtly degrade safety decisions, there is great
value in having an external certification body who can provide a second review and an independent
assessment of the safety of the system.
The JATR report indicates that: (1) the FAA certification team did not fully understand the overall impact
of the new MCAS system design, (2) the MCAS was not evaluated as a complete and integrated system on the
new aircraft, and (3) Boeing failed to inform the FAA of significant design changes over the design process
complicating their task.3 It appears that the FAA was unable to perform its important safety role due to the
use of delegated authority, or “self-certification,” in which Boeing was able to provide many of its own tests
and analyses without independent verification and validation. This process misses the point of the value
provided by an independent certification process.
Critical to this situation is that the FAA may have inadequate numbers of Human Factors engineers
involved in aircraft certification in addition to the pilots who are often serve in this role. Further, the JATR
found that the FAA “sometimes didn’t follow their own rules, used out-of-date procedures and lacked the
resources and expertise to fully vet the design changes implicated in two fatal crashes.” 3 The JATR
recommends that:
“the FAA integrate and emphasize human systems integration throughout its certification process.
Human factors relevant policies and guidance should be expanded and clarified and compliance with
regulatory requirements as 14 CFR 25.1302 (Installed systems and equipment for use by aircrew), 25.1309
(Equipment, Systems, and Installations), and 25.1322 (Flight crew Alerting) should be thoroughly verified and
documented. To enable the thorough analysis and verification of compliance, the FAA should expand its
aircraft certification resources in human factors and in human systems integration.” 3
The Human Factors and Ergonomics Society strongly agrees with this conclusion and recommendation.