Chicago - A message from the station manager

The [Monday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

For completists, there was no column on Friday and no Weekend Desk Report. Sorry!
“As Boeing hustled in 2015 to catch up to Airbus and certify its new 737 MAX, Federal Aviation Administration managers pushed the agency’s safety engineers to delegate safety assessments to Boeing itself, and to speedily approve the resulting analysis,” the Seattle Times reports.
“But the original safety analysis that Boeing delivered to the FAA for a new flight control system on the MAX – a report used to certify the plane as safe to fly – had several crucial flaws.
“That flight control system, called MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System), is now under scrutiny after two crashes of the jet in less than five months resulted in Wednesday’s FAA order to ground the plane.”


Our very own Tom Chambers emphasized this dynamic in his piece on Friday responding to a Steve Chapman column in the Tribune:

The FAA is also allowing Boeing to certify its own airplanes in a classic fox-in-the-henhouse scenario. European nations depend on America’s FAA to certify American planes, and then do some follow-up evaluation. Simply said, other countries, include emerging Third World nations, depend on the FAA as the source of their confidence in American planes.

Back to the Seattle Times:

The FAA, citing lack of funding and resources, has over the years delegated increasing authority to Boeing to take on more of the work of certifying the safety of its own airplanes.
Early on in certification of the 737 MAX, the FAA safety engineering team divided up the technical assessments that would be delegated to Boeing versus those they considered more critical and would be retained within the FAA.
But several FAA technical experts said in interviews that as certification proceeded, managers prodded them to speed the process. Development of the MAX was lagging nine months behind the rival Airbus A320neo. Time was of the essence for Boeing.
A former FAA safety engineer who was directly involved in certifying the MAX said that halfway through the certification process, “we were asked by management to re-evaluate what would be delegated. Management thought we had retained too much at the FAA.”
“There was constant pressure to re-evaluate our initial decisions,” the former engineer said. “And even after we had reassessed it . . . there was continued discussion by management about delegating even more items down to the Boeing Company.”
Even the work that was retained, such as reviewing technical documents provided by Boeing, was sometimes curtailed.
“There wasn’t a complete and proper review of the documents,” the former engineer added. “Review was rushed to reach certain certification dates.”
When time was too short for FAA technical staff to complete a review, sometimes managers either signed off on the documents themselves or delegated their review back to Boeing.

Libertarians who want to get rid of all government besides the military and police, and conservatives who want to let businesses regulate themselves, should be the ones forced to fly on the planes that result. The rest of us will fly on well-regulated planes that get us to our destinations safely instead.
*
Imagine, if you will, three airline carriers, each operating according to its namesake political philosophy: Libertarian Air, Conservative Air, and Liberal Air. Which do you think would get more customers?
*
There’s a lot more in the Seattle Times story, give it a read.
–
Plus:


–
Campaign Twitter


*


*


*


*


*


*


*


*


*


*


–
New on the Beachwood . . .
Tribune Columnist Trusts Airlines To Do What’s Right With Boeing Planes
“These are corporations that have run roughshod over local, regional and national entities in this country for decades,” our very own Tom Chambers writes.
*
The Beachwood Radio Sports Hour #243: Bears Make Big Little Moves; Cubs Building A Mystery
Defense to get more aggressive, incur more penalties. Plus: The Cubs Did Not Respect 90 Last Year And No One Was Held Accountable; Budget Bullpen Breaks; New Rules, Fools!; Sister Jean Has Down Year; College Admissions’ Side Doors; Duncan Keith, Biohacker; Alma Otter!; Puck Drop; and Schweinsteiger!
*
College Admission Scandal Grew Out Of A System Already Rigged With ‘Side Doors’
“Those ensnared in the current criminal case – which alleges that they paid for their children to get spots on the sports teams of big-name schools – couldn’t have succeeded if the college admissions process wasn’t already biased toward wealthier families.”
*
10 Ways Chicago Muslims Are Reacting To The Tragedy In New Zealand
Security, social media and open houses.
–
ChicagoReddit

Are there more Rap/Hip Hop/Dancehall Based clubs/bars in Chicago from r/chicago


–
ChicagoGram


–
BeachBook
What ‘Operation Varsity Blues’ Has To Do With The Art World.

*
Do You Really Need More Vitamin D?

*
‘I’m Weary Of Dating In The Church.’

*
Jello Biafra And The Politics Of Punk.

*
How Do You Know When It’s Time To Break Up?

*
Did We Get Amy Schumer Wrong?

–
TweetWood
A non-campaign sample.


*


*


*


*


*


*


–
The Beachwood McRibTipLine: Begin the begin.

Permalink

Posted on March 18, 2019