Investigations
How the FAA allows jetmakers to ‘self certify’ that planes meet U.S. safety requirements

By Aaron C. Davis and Marina Lopes
March 15 at 9:25 PM

In October 2017, Brazilian regulators flew to Miami to test out the brand-new Boeing 737 Max 8. The team scrutinized the sleek new jetliner’s flight systems and soon published a list of over 60 operational changes, from landing systems to cockpit displays, that Brazilian pilots would need to learn.

Among the new features regulators said pilots would have to familiarize themselves with was the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, a safety system that could nose the plane downward if it sensed a potential stall. The regulators mandated an interactive course for pilots to go over the changes and recommended “two legs of SLF,” or supervised flight, according to a copy of their report obtained by The Washington Post.

In those same months, the Federal Aviation Administration was making its final revision to a 53-page report that would make up the backbone of Max 8 training guidelines for pilots across the United States and in almost every other country around the world. ... It did not once mention the anti-stall system, according to a copy reviewed by The Post. ... In fact, the FAA report suggested pilots would experience nothing surprising in the cockpit of the new Max 8. In a section where FAA test pilots are supposed to list “unique handling or performance characteristics” of new planes, they remarked that there were none: “no specific flight characteristics,” the report read.

Questions about pilot training requirements and the plane’s new technology are at the center of a roiling debate following the crashes of two 737 Max 8s in the past five months. Aviation authorities have said there were similarities between the flight paths of the two planes, each of which crashed shortly after takeoff, and the FAA grounded Max 8s this week. Indications that the crashes may share a common cause have put a spotlight on the FAA’s certification of the 737 Max 8 as airworthy, a process that includes determining whether to require additional pilot training.
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Lopes reported from Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Aaron Davis is an investigative reporter who has covered local, state and federal government, as well as the aviation industry and law enforcement. Davis shared in winning the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting in 2018. Follow https://twitter.com/byaaroncdavis

Marina Lopes is the Washington Post's Brazil correspondent. Before joining the paper she reported for Reuters in Mozambique, New York, and Washington D.C. She holds a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University. Follow https://twitter.com/bymarinalopes