Aviation authorities have weighed in on how Boeing engineers failed to anticipate pilots’ reactions to a cacophony of alerts from misfiring flight control software, how managers pressured engineers to speed the completion of their designs, and how an acquiescent FAA missed the deadly risk from software changes made late in testing. But the most fundamental breakdown at Boeing may have been a lack of appreciation of how humans respond under stress—both in the machine it was designing and in its own organisation. On aircraft like the Boeing 777, a cadre of pilots had worked closely with engineers to solve problems. By the time the Max entered development, Boeing was pushing hard to turn the unglamorous but all-important business of customer training into a profit centre of its own. <br/>
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The economic impact of Boeing's planned halt of 737 MAX production will not be considered by US regulators in their ongoing review of when to end the grounding of a plane involved in 2 major fatal crashes, US Transportation secretary Elaine Chao said Friday. Chao said the White House has not pressured the FAA to speed up its review. Chao also said the White House Council of Economic Advisers had conducted a study of the economic impact of the grounding, which forced Boeing - a critical American manufacturing company - to halt deliveries in March, and assessed that it would cause around a 0.4% reduction in US gross domestic product. "Regardless as to what the impact on GDP is, our responsibility is to ensure that the 737 MAX must be safe before it is ungrounded," Chao said. <br/>
A whistleblower with the TSA is sounding the alarm about loosened security at US airports, charging that top TSA officials have prioritised speed over security by reducing the sensitivity of metal detectors, disabling technology on some X-ray machines, issuing orders to keep the baggage conveyor belts moving in certain circumstances and ordering policy changes that result in fewer pat-downs. Jay Brainard, the highest-ranking TSA official in Kansas, has notified the highest reaches of the TSA as well as outside federal regulatory bodies about the matter, but says little is being done. He believes the relaxed security rules that have occurred over the past couple of years are putting US passengers at risk. "It's not a question of if, it's a question of when,” said Brainard. ”We are long overdue for an attack." <br/>
General Electric and Safran have struck a deal to increase production of engines for Airbus' rival to the 737 MAX, helping the pair deal with Boeing’s production halt of its embattled plane, according to people familiar with the matter. The agreement—made via the GE-Safran joint venture CFM International—will increase its output of LEAP 1A engines, 1 of 2 turbine options for the Airbus A320neo, to around 58% of total deliveries, the people said. Pratt & Whitney is due to slow output to about 42%, the people added. The timing of the deal is crucial for GE. The extended MAX grounding coupled with the production halt ordered this month have already strained GE finances, cutting cash flow by as much as US$1.4b this year as factories produce fewer engines and GE can’t get fully paid for them. <br/>
Boeing needs more oversight from international regulators, according to the EU’s aviation safety chief, after weaknesses in US oversight were exposed following 2 fatal crashes of the 737 Max jet. Patrick Ky, executive director of EASA lacked Europe’s “rigid” processes that would have raised questions about Boeing’s classification of flight control software later deemed to be a major factor in the crashes as “not safety critical”. “What went wrong [was] the way in which Boeing performed a certain number of assessments and the way in which assessments were taken on board by the FAA,” he said. While any regulator could make mistakes, Europe had “a much more structured, and . . . rigid process”, he added. <br/>