Forensics experts comb through the dirt for debris at the crash site of the Ethiopian Airlines-operated Boeing 737 Max aircraft on March 14. of two Boeing 737 Max 8 jets has brought renewed attention to an apparent conflict of interest in the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s regulation of the aircraft industry.
FULL COVERAGE: Boeing 737 Max planes grounded in U.S. and around the world following 2 deadly crashes » In 1938, Congress created the Civil Aeronautics Authority, which vested both functions in a new agency housed within the Department of Commerce. Two years later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to solve the problem by creating two distinct agencies. He arguably made things worse.
Perhaps inevitably, there were more crashes and more calls for reform. In 1958, Congress consolidated the CAA and the CAB in a new creation: the Federal Aviation Agency. Yet the statute made only limited references to safety; instead, the imperative to “foster air commerce” got top billing in the charter language.
But this wasn’t really the agency’s fault: it was charged with the impossible tasks of protecting safety and profit. The deregulation of the airline industry in the late 1970s, which ushered in an era of cutthroat competition, only complicated this calculus further.
How could Boeing get away with making safety features which could prevent a disaster optional?
can’t trust the FAANews
morgfair Apparently Boeing was involved in approving and regulating their own aircrafts!? Right
thanks for updates Los Angeles Times
Conflict of interest? In the Trump administration? Inconceivable!
And conflict of interest with the Trump administration