By Rudy Pont, BeCA Air Safety Committee Coordinator

By now, it is hard to keep track of the many articles and opinions that have been written about the B737 MAX grounding since March.

And because of all this media attention, politicians want to have their say as well, ranging from ‘presidential’ advice on renaming the plane (http://bit.ly/2Q0f0Q2) to congressmen claiming there is no problem in the US (https://bloom.bg/34RlIwb). In a very recent New York Times article (https://nyti.ms/2WUxl2t), William Langewiesche clears Boeing and the FAA and simply puts the blame on the pilots and the corruption within the Indonesian authorities. He concludes “What we had in the two downed aeroplanes was a textbook failure of airmanship. In broad daylight, these pilots couldn’t decipher a variant of a simple runaway trim, and they ended up flying too fast at low altitude, neglecting to throttle back and leading their passengers over an aerodynamic edge into oblivion. They were the deciding factor here, not the MCAS, not the Max.”

Although I agree that there might be a significant decline in training under commercial pressure, I find these allegations judgemental, counterfactual, proximal (http://bit.ly/2WTzJGG) and above all a prime example of hindsight bias. And I am glad Cpt. Sullenberger agrees with me (http://bit.ly/2CqtW1Y). Probably, there is an issue with pilot training standards worldwide (let’s hope the upcoming EATO conference (http://eateo.eu/) brings some insights), but “this does not excuse the fatally flawed design of the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) that was a death trap”. The current system of aircraft design and certification has failed us (http://bit.ly/32uDjZ8). This is also confirmed by the recently released JATR report (http://bit.ly/2Kh0sIn) which calls upon certifying authorities “to perform a comprehensive integrated system-level analysis recognizing that in complex interactive systems, every change can interact with other parts of the system.” Personally, I find it deplorable that 346 people needed to lose their lives before authorities finally come to grips with resilience engineering (http://bit.ly/2NOifaC); a concept pitched over ten years ago!

Did Boeing engineers act in wilful blindness? Probably not. As they were pushed by commercial pressure in making the deadlines without re-certification, they probably fell victim to the normalisation of deviance (http://bit.ly/2NNacLe). Pushing the boundary little by little. Every little step rewarded by a non-event strengthening the belief that it could be done. Just like a toddler who is told not to enter the kitchen, approaches the hot plate with cookies and finally burns himself. I told you so!

But what about the company’s management, what about the authorities. Who is ultimately accountable? That is indeed the  9.2 billion dollar question (https://yhoo.it/2NsOFIR). Apart from Mr Muilenburg (http://bit.ly/2WRC7Oi), there will be other scapegoats. But where in the hierarchy to draw the line? Were the signs (https://on.ft.com/2oYCM3P) not sufficiently obvious? Was the MCAS actively hidden from regulatory oversight (https://cnb.cx/2NrAQdy)? If not, who agreed not to include it in the manuals or training? What was the degree of regulatory capture (i.e. the reality that authority officials are hired by the industry for their regulatory knowledge and network)?

Independently from the answers to these questions, it is clear that aircraft certification needs to be reviewed. Manufacturers and authorities have accountability to make sure the public and flight crew can fly safe and redundant aircraft. And despite the claims of some (http://bit.ly/2Nrcgtp), for the time being, well-trained pilots will need to act as the ultimate realtime flexible system to save the day if things go sour. As IFALPA president Jack Netskar (http://bit.ly/2pJhlV3) puts it “It all comes down to trust. Trust towards the regulator, trust towards the manufacturer, trust towards the operator. At the recent B737 MAX Summit, all the stakeholders from IATA, FAA, and Boeing, to Regulators and ICAO, pointed to the pilots as the main symbol of trust for the public. We are doing our utmost to validate the process; we cannot presently approach the public with a clean bill, but will, if and when we feel comfortable to do so.” Meanwhile, EASA is aiming for a decision by January 2020 (http://bit.ly/32w7FdE).