In the wake of two deadly accidents, the Trump White House was reluctant to ground the fleet of Boeing 737-Max aircraft in the United States. Trump, who has multiple ties to the aircraft manufacturer and has long flown a Boeing as his personal plane, finally took action last week, but only long after every other nation had put the planes on the ground—and after Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and the “acting” heads of the Federal Aviation Administration failed to act in favor of public safety.
The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that federal prosecutors are looking into the development of the planes, and how they went through the process of approval in the first place. A grand jury in Washington, D.C., issued a subpoena seeking documents related to the development of the 737-Max series of planes on March 11, just one day after the deadly crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302. It’s unclear, as of March 18, just who is targeted by the subpoena and whether the targets are at Boeing or inside the FAA.
The involvement of federal prosecutors is “highly unusual” and suggests that there is more under consideration than just whether or not Boeing followed all the rules in submitting their paperwork. Even major infractions of rules are usually handled within the Department of Transportation through fines and oversight. It seems likely that the Department of Justice is looking at potential criminal prosecution of people within Boeing and/or within the FAA.
A number of complaints about the behavior of the 737-Max autopilot system were filed with the FAA before the crash in Ethiopia, and even before the crash of Indonesian Lion Air Flight 610 in October 2018. It’s not clear whether the behaviors described in those complaints are related to the issues that brought down the two flights. However, it does seem clear that in both cases, the pilots were engaged in struggling against a system that seemed to be pitching the plane’s nose radically up or down. Both black box information and satellite tracking has suggested that the two flights followed a similar profile before entering a final, deadly plunge.
In addition to the action being taken by federal prosecutors, the Department of Transportation has launched an internal investigation.
Secretary Chao, rather than suspending flights of the planes, made a show of taking a flight on the 737-Max the morning before the planes were eventually grounded. Nevertheless, the Department of a Transportation inquiry is looking into how Boeing designed the plane as well as the information it provides in pilot training, which has been a target of previous complaints. The investigation will also look at how the plane was approved, and whether the manufacturer was allowed to conduct too much of their own testing.
The handling of issues around the 737-Max were not just slow, but seemed aimed at protecting the manufacturer rather than the public.
Designed for improved fuel efficiency, the Max pushes some genuine technical advances to lower fuel consumption by 14 percent compared to the standard 737 Next Generation (737-700, 737-800, 737-900) that make up the mainstay of many airline fleets. Despite bearing the same name as the parent jet, the Max has changes everywhere. However, it was allowed to be approved by only moving through the steps required of an upgrade to an existing plane, rather than being treated as a clean-sheet design by the FAA.