The U.S. Transportation Department says it will convene a special committee to look at how aircraft are certified in the U.S. by the Federal Aviation Administration, and includes a review of the certification of the Boeing 737 MAX.
Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said in a letter, “Safety is the number one priority of the Department, and this review by leading outside experts will help determine if improvements can be made to the FAA aircraft certification process.”
The move comes amid a busy stretch for Boeing. Already on Saturday, Boeing hosted airline pilots and technical leaders for “training information sessions” on how fixes to the 737 MAX will work.
KING 5 News has learned this involved seeing some of those fixes in action from the 737 MAX engineering simulator near Boeing Field. Among those fixes will be an indicator showing how the Angle of Attack (or AOA) sensors on the nose of the plane will now display a notification to the pilots, if the sensors are not in agreement. Such a warning indicator was offered as an option on the 384 MAX planes built so far, but is expected to become standard equipment going forward. The indicator was not on either of the two 737s MAXs which recently crashed.
In a statement from Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Chief Engineer John Hamilton said the primary instrument display are what pilots need, “The AOA (angle of attack) indicator would provide supplementary information to the flight crew.” Hamilton said the indicator would, “Provide additional context for understanding the possible cause of air speed and altitude differences between the pilot’s and first officer’s displays.”
Hamilton added that primary Instruments displayed on the screen in front of the pilots “are focused around airplane roll and pitch attitude, altitude, heading and vertical speed. All 737 MAX airplanes display this data in a way that is consistent with pilot training and the fundamental instrument scan pattern that pilots are trained to use.”
While a final cause in the deadly October 29 and March 10 crashes of two brand new MAX jets remain unknown, similarities between the crashes from flight data recorders, radar tracks and physical evidence has focused both investigations onto a safety system called MCAS that pilots said Boeing never informed them of and trained them for. Though the flight manual and interviews with other 737 pilots said the solution to an airplane wanting to pitch down would be to simply turn the pitch off. Yet, Boeing has been blamed for not informing pilots of the existence of the MCAS system.
Software and hardware fixes are waiting for FAA approval, but a big part of the now grounded MAX planes' return to the skies is expected to focus on training. On Wednesday, Boeing said it will bring in 200 more pilots, technical leads and regulators from around the world to explain where it’s heading. In Washington D.C., a Congressional hearing will begin a senate review of the MAX planes’ safety.