The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) fully understood Boeing’s safety assessments of new flight control software on the Boeing 737 MAX only after the first of two fatal crashes involving the airplane, a U.S. government oversight agency says. The software was cited for contributing to both crashes, which killed a total of 346 people.
The Transportation Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) said in a report released last week (Feb. 23) that although Boeing and the FAA had “followed the established certification process” for the 737 MAX, the OIG’s audit found “limitations in FAA’s guidance and processes that impacted certification and led to a significant misunderstanding of the maneuvering characteristics augmentation system (MCAS).”
The software was cited in two fatal 737 MAX crashes – Lion Air Flight 610, which crashed after takeoff from Jakarta, Indonesia, on Oct. 29, 2018, and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, which crashed after t…
