Originally Posted by
Peter47
You cannot expect a Board to be experts on safety but they must make certain that there is an effective process in place. Where does negligence start?
At least when I retired (5 years ago), Boeing Commercial did have a robust safety process. I was a long time member of the Propulsion SRB (Safety Review Board), and often participated in the Aircraft level and Cross Model SRBs. I never had any significant issues with how the SRBs handled their tasks, and with minimal 'interference' from higher ups, and this extended to the new program board I dealt with during the 747-8 development. More than once, I found that we needed to make an expensive change to meet safety and cert requirements and had to go to program to get the change approved. It may have been grudgingly, but the changes were approved. I have no reason to believe that changed significantly after I left (including feedback from coworkers that stayed on after I left). Interestingly, the one time I did get into it with a Chief engineer about an expensive (one million dollars) change I insisted was required to meet the regs was well
before Boeing became a Delegated Organization - in fact my experience was factored into the 'undo pressure' rules to protect the designated "Authorized Representatives" (AR - the delegated equivalent of a DER).
So, unless the Board somehow interfered with the existing processes in place, it would not be unreasonable for them to have done a cursory review of the processes - found them adequate - and left them alone.
If, OTOH, the Board
did somehow interfere with the existing safety processes which contributed to the MAX disasters, I'd think criminal charges would be in order.