Congressman Cohen Demands Boeing be held Accountable for not Correcting Known 737 MAX Flaws

Statement

Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), a senior member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, today questioned Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Stephen M. Dickson after evidence emerged that Boeing was aware of a safety design flaw regarding the angle of attack (AOA) disagree alerts in its 737 MAX aircraft but waited three years to address it.

The two 737 MAX aircraft involved in the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes lacked safety features that could have helped the pilots and aviation mechanics recognize false readings from sensors connected to the aircraft's new flight control system. Following the Lion Air crash, the Indonesian civil aviation authority's final report found that the inoperative AOA disagree alert on the airplane "contributed to the crew being denied valid information about abnormal conditions." It was revealed that Boeing knew in August 2017 that the safety feature only worked on planes for which airlines had paid for it as an optional safety feature.

Addressing Dickson, Congressman Cohen said:

"Southwest Airlines, which operates out of my hometown of Memphis, said in a statement that it had only learned that the system was optional after the Lion Air tragedy. We learned at our previous hearing in October that Boeing initially decided to wait to fix the defect for three years after discovering the flaw. Boeing also confirmed that it kept producing planes with this known defect and did not inform the FAA or its customers about it until after the Lion Air crash in October 2018.

"This is completely unacceptable. Somebody needs to be truly held accountable. Someone needs to be held accountable at Boeing."

Today, Congressman Cohen also introduced the Safety is Not for Sale Act to remedy the problem and ensure that additional fees are not charged for safety enhancing equipment on airplanes.

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