House report blames both Boeing and FAA for 737 Max failures

A US House of Representatives committee apportioned blame to both Boeing and the FAA for two crashes of the 737 Max that killed 346 people, in a blistering report summarising its investigation into the jet’s manufacture and certification by American regulators. Peter DeFazio, the Democratic congressman who chairs the House committee on transportation and infrastructure, said the fatalities were “tragic and avoidable”. The committee launched an investigation almost a year ago after two crashes in five months led to the worldwide grounding of the aircraft. The report excoriated both the Chicago aerospace manufacturer and its regulator, the FAA, calling the government body’s review of the Max “grossly insufficient”. “Boeing’s design and development of the 737 Max was marred by technical design failures, lack of transparency with both regulators and customers, and efforts to obfuscate information about the operation of the aircraft,” according to the report.  “The committee’s investigation has also found . . . the FAA failed in its duty to identify key safety problems and to ensure that they were adequately addressed during the certification process. The combination of these problems doomed the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines flights.” Story has more.<br/>