Boeing : European Regulators Won More 737 MAX Concessions from Boeing Than U.S. FAA

By Andy Pasztor

Before European air-safety regulators allowed Boeing Co.'s 737 MAX jets back in the air, they extracted concessions from the company ranging from modified engineering procedures to revised designs affecting future MAX versions.

The changes, laid out in a document released by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, in some cases goes beyond those required by the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA approved the 737 MAX fleet to resume commercial service in the U.S two months ago. EASA took the same step for European airspace on Wednesday, followed by regulators in the U.K.

A portion of the changes expected to play out in the future were already public, but other arrangements that were negotiated behind the scenes were revealed along with EASA's final decision Wednesday.

EASA said it released the document as part of its overall strategy to be transparent and reassure the public about the safety of the 737 MAX.

Two of the planes crashed less than five months apart, taking 346 lives and prompting a world-wide grounding in March 2019. Accident investigators and regulators have determined that an automated flight-control feature, called MCAS, misfired and put both aircraft into fatal nosedives.

"We carried out our own flight tests and simulator sessions" to demonstrate the safety of hardware, software and pilot-training fixes previously mandated by the FAA, EASA said in a separate press release. In addition, the release said, "at our insistence, Boeing also has committed to work to enhance the aircraft still further" so that in the future it can reach an even higher level of safety.

A Boeing spokesman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

The report begins by noting that "passengers' confidence in aviation safety has been thoroughly rattled" as a result of the dual crashes, and goes on to detail commitments Boeing made to EASA.

Those commitments include reassessing within 12 months certain cockpit design features on future MAX models to help pilots avoid distraction when dealing with multiple, cascading system failures.

In addition, according to the report, "EASA has requested and agreed with Boeing [on] a set of improvements" to the company's overall safety-assessment process. Updated assessments must be presented to EASA and verified during certification of the next 737 MAX model.

EASA also determined that lightning-protection features for some onboard systems didn't comply with mandatory standards, though agency experts concluded they didn't affect the MCAS. Boeing agreed to study the electrical issues further.

Other noncritical items deemed unsafe by EASA will be handled under agreements with Boeing for design and process improvements after the current fleet returns to service.

The report concludes with criticism of Boeing's engineering and design practices. The fatal problems with MCAS weren't an isolated case of such procedural lapses, the report asserts. It refers to the discovery of several systemic issues that will be addressed in future MAX models to prevent a repeat of design failures. The report didn't elaborate.

EASA's moves come amid friction between agency officials and their FAA counterparts over the design of Boeing's delayed 777X model. Regulatory approval for that long-range aircraft has been held up partly by disagreements between the two agencies regarding specifics of redundant flight-control systems, according to one person briefed on the details.

EASA is making a broader push, spurred by Boeing's 737 MAX errors, to assert greater control over safety approvals of new aircraft models built in the U.S. EASA chief Patrick Ky told European lawmakers earlier this week that he and his team are determined to have a larger say in FAA decisions certifying the safety of new jetliners approved and built across the Atlantic.

As part of its 737 MAX ungrounding decision, EASA also allowed pilots to pull a circuit breaker if necessary, in order to silence an alert that vibrates the plane's control column and can distract flight crews during emergencies, including the two that brought down the MAX jets in 2018 and 2019.

The FAA has rejected that type of pilot intervention, even if a crew concluded the alert was erroneous. In a November report, the FAA said pilots could have trouble identifying or reaching the correct circuit breaker, or could pull the wrong one and unwittingly introduce new hazards.

Write to Andy Pasztor at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

01-28-21 1705ET