On January 5, 2024, a door plug departed an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 at 16,000 feet. The FAA grounded the type, audited Boeing’s production lines, and capped how many aircraft the company could build. Months later the FAA Administrator came before the Senate Commerce Committee, and the chair pressed him on whether the safety system underneath all of it was mandatory or merely encouraged.
Voluntary, or not
ChairSo I am very concerned that your oversight is not strong enough. So how does this comply--how does your rule now comply with both ACSAA and what the expert panel is saying, which is a regular oversight of the safety management system by the FAA?
WhitakerThank you. I think it is--that question hits at the core of safety.
WhitakerOne of the things that has happened over the last 6 months is at our encouragement the airlines have spent a lot of time with Boeing to discuss their safety management systems and why it is the secret sauce to having a safe outcome, and I view it as the core of these changes that are coming.
WhitakerNow that the system is mandatory it requires it to be more robust. So it will--we will now have regulatory standards by which to judge the mandatory system whereas when it was voluntary we did not have any compulsory standards to impose.
WhitakerThe safety management systems have to have a culture where employees are free to speak up, identify risks, and have those risks taken seriously.
ChairSo voluntary unacceptable?
WhitakerWell, it is now mandatory but it gives us more--it certainly gives us more leverage to ensure that it is a very robust system.
ChairI need to know that the FAA Administrator believes that SMS is not a voluntary system for us to have a safe flying system.
WhitakerThat is correct, yes.
ChairThank you. Do you believe that the FAA should have its own safety management system?
WhitakerAbsolutely, and we have an umbrella system which is required by ICAO and the air traffic organization has an SMS system and our flight operations have SMS systems.
ChairDo you believe the FAA needs an overall SMS system?
WhitakerWe have an overall system now but it is maybe not as fully integrated as it needs to be and we are looking at that.
ChairI am not sure what to make of that answer. So my time is up, but we will come back to this discussion.
[Hearing transcript, questioning by the Chair.]