Mary Schiavo, the former inspector general at the US Department of Transportation, an aviation attorney and an aviation professor, told Sputnik Wednesday that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is very “deferential” to US aircraft manufacturer Boeing, despite two crashes of the manufacturer’s new jets in the past five months.
« The Federal Aviation Administration defers to Boeing just as it does to other manufacturers and airlines for a lot of its consideration. It’s very deferential, especially to Boeing. Boeing has tremendous capabilities, knowledge and insight. Over time, the FAA has relinquished more and more of its oversight to designated examiners, designated inspectors, etc., so the FAA defers to Boeing’s opinion, » Schiavo told Sputnik’s Loud & Clear hosts John Kiriakou and Brian Becker.
« And that’s the way it’s been for years. I’m not suggesting there’s any nefarious going on in this particular incident. This is how the FAA typically works. This, for them, is business as usual, » Schiavo added.
On Sunday, a Boeing 737 MAX 8 plane operated by Ethiopian Airlines, bound for the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, crashed soon after taking off from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, at around 8:30 a.m., killing all 157 people on board. According to Ethiopian Airlines, contact with the plane was lost at 8:44 a.m., just a few minutes after it took off.
The latest crash is the second one involving a Boeing 737 MAX 8, a new model of commercial passenger aircraft, in the last few months.
In October 2018, a Lion Air plane crashed into the sea just minutes after taking off from the Indonesian capital of Jakarta. All 189 passengers onboard were killed. The black box retrieved after the crash revealed that the plane’s sensors had been displaying incorrect speed and altitude readings.
On Monday, the FAA issued a statement saying that the organization is « collecting data and keeping in contact with international civil aviation authorities as information becomes available.
