Snip. They handed much of the certification process to Boeing because they, the FAA didn’t have the time, resources, expertise or will to do it themselves.
. I’d bet my next pay cheque on the CAA simply rubber stamping the FAA certification process and so the problem arrived on these shores unchecked.
I’m going to go out on a limb here!
A lot of criticism is (rightly) being levelled at Boeing. What they (appear) to have done is inexcusable but for me, the question that needs asking is “why did they do it?” The unpalatable answer is “because they were allowed to”. In other words, Regulators the world over failed to regulate. Those who’ve read any of my previous posts on various threads will recognise my recurring theme!
Aviation is like the restaurant industry; you get on a plane expecting to get off safely at the other end in the same way as you go to a restaurant in the expectation you’re not going to get food poisoning. How the food is delivered, packaged, prepared, cooked and served is essentially a back room function we know little about, carried out by people we know little about but trust nevertheless. If we didn’t, we’d never get on a plane / go out for a meal. I could cite dozens of issues that’d make your hair curl and ensure you’d look into ferry travel but then the same probably applies to the merchant marine. It is only when an aircraft crashes or someone dies of food poisoning after eating out that these concerns get aired and people ask questions. How many newspaper articles have you read with headlines like “aircraft arrives safely despite crew being so tired their mental acuity was equivalent to having drunk 5 pints of beer” or “great meal had by all despite cockroaches infesting filthy kitchen”?
So how does this happen? Various regulators are charged with setting rules and enforcing them without fear or favour and without regard to the financial consequences an adverse decision might have on the people they are regulating. Both aviation and the restaurant trade are largely left to self regulate, “here are the rules, take action to remain within them”. It’s at this point that the two trades diverge. Food Standards and Environmental Health actively monitor compliance and take action where shortfalls are identified, they close restaurants and issue enforcement notices, they do it publicly. When was the last time you saw a “This airline is certified as 5 star for safety” sticker on the aeroplane door? There’s a reason for that, the Regulator doesn’t know and the reason it doesn’t know is because it doesn’t look, largely ignores those who tell it and fails to act on the evidence preferring to cite the evidence that all is well because aircraft aren’t crashing. And then one crashes. And another one. Then we have reactive measures put in place that largely ignore the central issue because that’d be tantamount to an admission of failure and that costs people their jobs. Never mind that this particular case has cost 346 people their lives. Wholly avoidably. The only reason they weren’t UK airframes was blind luck. To be fair to the airlines, they were told by the Authority that it was all fine, again, why would they question the organisation that supposedly sets the standard?
The above food agencies are well staffed and knowledgeable and take their work seriously. Crucially, they don’t charge those they’re inspecting.
The Civil Aviation Authority is understaffed, has lost most (?all) it’s technical expertise and is immediately conflicted by the simple fact it charges those it’s supposed to regulate for regulating them. There is a failure in regulatory oversight and regulatory capture as a result. The FAA are in the same boat. They handed much of the certification process to Boeing because they, the FAA didn’t have the time, resources, expertise or will to do it themselves. I’d bet my next pay cheque on the CAA simply rubber stamping the FAA certification process and so the problem arrived on these shores unchecked.
Let’s face it, how many of us paid for extra driving lessons to improve our skills beyond the basic skills required to pass the test? Why do insurers charge new drivers more and why are P plates all the rage? We know new drivers are more of a risk yet we endorse the above on the grounds of cost. Why pay more? Why would you expect Boeing and the airlines to do anything different?
It takes regulatory oversight to identify a problem, regulatory capture to accept it, regulatory governance to decide on a solution and enact it and lastly regulatory enforcement to ensure it’s complied with. The DVLA identified new drivers killing themselves on motorways as a problem, realised the reason why was motorway driving was not a teaching or testing requirement, made it so and you cannot now pass a driving test unless you prove competence in motorway driving.
And so on.
Unless you’re a National Aviation Authority that is unable or unwilling to exercise its authority.
It does seem that lack of regulatory oversight is also part of the problem. However from my position whilst sat in the back of the aircraft I was under the impression that function (quoted from your informative post), is the core business of the FAA (and CAA), if they are not carrying out this process what are they doing and how does it contribute to flight safety?
I have been following, with interest, your views on aircraft regulation. In ATC things are very different. Yes each country has it's own regulator (In Europe EASA sits above that) but, in general, they do not give 'approval' for changes to procedures, new systems etc. What you get is a LONO (Letter of no objection). The reason being that the various ANSPs (Air Navigation Service Providers, in UK mainly NATS) have to satisfy the people that provide the service (the controllers) that it's safe.I’m going to go out on a limb here!
A lot of criticism is (rightly) being levelled at Boeing. What they (appear) to have done is inexcusable but for me, the question that needs asking is “why did they do it?” The unpalatable answer is “because they were allowed to”. In other words, Regulators the world over failed to regulate. Those who’ve read any of my previous posts on various threads will recognise my recurring theme!
Aviation is like the restaurant industry; you get on a plane expecting to get off safely at the other end in the same way as you go to a restaurant in the expectation you’re not going to get food poisoning. How the food is delivered, packaged, prepared, cooked and served is essentially a back room function we know little about, carried out by people we know little about but trust nevertheless. If we didn’t, we’d never get on a plane / go out for a meal. I could cite dozens of issues that’d make your hair curl and ensure you’d look into ferry travel but then the same probably applies to the merchant marine. It is only when an aircraft crashes or someone dies of food poisoning after eating out that these concerns get aired and people ask questions. How many newspaper articles have you read with headlines like “aircraft arrives safely despite crew being so tired their mental acuity was equivalent to having drunk 5 pints of beer” or “great meal had by all despite cockroaches infesting filthy kitchen”?
So how does this happen? Various regulators are charged with setting rules and enforcing them without fear or favour and without regard to the financial consequences an adverse decision might have on the people they are regulating. Both aviation and the restaurant trade are largely left to self regulate, “here are the rules, take action to remain within them”. It’s at this point that the two trades diverge. Food Standards and Environmental Health actively monitor compliance and take action where shortfalls are identified, they close restaurants and issue enforcement notices, they do it publicly. When was the last time you saw a “This airline is certified as 5 star for safety” sticker on the aeroplane door? There’s a reason for that, the Regulator doesn’t know and the reason it doesn’t know is because it doesn’t look, largely ignores those who tell it and fails to act on the evidence preferring to cite the evidence that all is well because aircraft aren’t crashing. And then one crashes. And another one. Then we have reactive measures put in place that largely ignore the central issue because that’d be tantamount to an admission of failure and that costs people their jobs. Never mind that this particular case has cost 346 people their lives. Wholly avoidably. The only reason they weren’t UK airframes was blind luck. To be fair to the airlines, they were told by the Authority that it was all fine, again, why would they question the organisation that supposedly sets the standard?
The above food agencies are well staffed and knowledgeable and take their work seriously. Crucially, they don’t charge those they’re inspecting.
The Civil Aviation Authority is understaffed, has lost most (?all) it’s technical expertise and is immediately conflicted by the simple fact it charges those it’s supposed to regulate for regulating them. There is a failure in regulatory oversight and regulatory capture as a result. The FAA are in the same boat. They handed much of the certification process to Boeing because they, the FAA didn’t have the time, resources, expertise or will to do it themselves. I’d bet my next pay cheque on the CAA simply rubber stamping the FAA certification process and so the problem arrived on these shores unchecked.
Let’s face it, how many of us paid for extra driving lessons to improve our skills beyond the basic skills required to pass the test? Why do insurers charge new drivers more and why are P plates all the rage? We know new drivers are more of a risk yet we endorse the above on the grounds of cost. Why pay more? Why would you expect Boeing and the airlines to do anything different?
It takes regulatory oversight to identify a problem, regulatory capture to accept it, regulatory governance to decide on a solution and enact it and lastly regulatory enforcement to ensure it’s complied with. The DVLA identified new drivers killing themselves on motorways as a problem, realised the reason why was motorway driving was not a teaching or testing requirement, made it so and you cannot now pass a driving test unless you prove competence in motorway driving.
And so on.
Unless you’re a National Aviation Authority that is unable or unwilling to exercise its authority.
Small (pedantic) point - surely it would be an EASA rubber stamp (Particularly since EASA regs are a rewrite of JARs in themselves a direct copy of the US FAA FARs**
CAA being limited these days to tasks on behalf of EASA with the exception of state aviation (eg Police helicopters).
**By Direct copy I mean scan edit some words and replace FAR with JAR - Undeniably so because when reading JAR 145 some page headers had been missed and still said FAR 145.
Not to mention a lot of oversight is arse covering by the regulator to make sure no shit splashes back when it all goes wrong. Engineers sign away their lives and fill out reams of paperwork to assure the regulator they're doing it right, so much so that it entails a large proportion of their job.
At the same time, due to the loss of expertise, the regulator is often unable to assist and point them in the right direction when they run into technical problems. Inspectors going around hangars who are shit hot at the paperwork and will tear you a new one for an incorrectly filled in form, but unable to inform or answer questions regarding the tech side ofthe operation and barely know what they're looking at in some cases.
I have been following, with interest, your views on aircraft regulation. In ATC things are very different. Yes each country has it's own regulator (In Europe EASA sits above that) but, in general, they do not give 'approval' for changes to procedures, new systems etc. What you get is a LONO (Letter of no objection). The reason being that the various ANSPs (Air Navigation Service Providers, in UK mainly NATS) have to satisfy the people that provide the service (the controllers) that it's safe.
We follow the EASA guidelines and the EUROCAE standards, write safety cases etc. However if the controllers are not happy using whatever the new 'thing' is then they won't use it.
A similar question was asked of the Board of Airbus Helicopters after the grounding of their EC225 following another gearbox self-destruction.If the jet is as safe as Boeing was saying just a couple of weeks ago, I wonder if you loaded a 737-Max with Boeing owners, top execs, designers - and their families, whether they'd trust their lives to it?
A similar question was asked of the Board of Airbus Helicopters after the grounding of their EC225 following another gearbox self-destruction.
A task made simpler in the absence of surviving aircrew. I have a particular interest in the crash of G-WNSB, as a dear friend failed to escape the cabin after the pilots allowed the cab to get into an unrecoverable situation off a relatively benign approach.And is being asked of the Glasgow night club helicopter accident. I’m not at liberty to discuss the details of that because the case is ongoing but Airbus have hired a staggeringly expensive legal team to shift the onus of the questions away from the allegedly poorly designed fuel control system which is alleged to be a human factors nightmare and on to the poor standard of Piloting.
Poor design becomes poorly certified design becomes pilot error.
Is there an echo in here?
A task made simpler in the absence of surviving aircrew. I have a particular interest in the crash of G-WNSB, as a dear friend failed to escape the cabin after the pilots allowed the cab to get into an unrecoverable situation off a relatively benign approach.
Thanks. It was a Friday afternoon, marginal weather forecast for Aberdeen, so they planned on a fuel-stop at Sumburgh for a possible diversion to Edinburgh. The cloudbase at Sumburgh precluded a precision approach, hence they elected a cross-wind procedural approach over open water, running-in at MDH to the MAP, during which they allowed the airspeed to decay to the point where VRS should have been considered. Over-reliance on automation? Speed governed by the AP? Yes, I know that the SOP was and still is to make maximum use of automated systems, but this seems to be at the expense of raw handling skills. The relatively inexperienced co-pilot seemed content to let the commander's judgement over-rule his misgivings, so it's as much a human-factors issue as one of blindly following company procedure. Both looking for approach lights as they reached MAP, neither noticing the speed wash-off and the nose-up attitude increase. It's possible that they spotted a cloud-break and turned downwind straight into VRS.Aircraft Accident Report AAR 1/2016 - G-WNSB, 23 August 2013
The causal factors are reasonably clear but look at the casual factors. 3 of the 4 were down to poor procedures, not poorly executed procedures. Approval of procedures is a regulatory function. Why were poor procedures in place that allowed the crew or in fact required the crew to get into that situation in the first place?
And my condolences on the loss of your friend.
At the same time, due to the loss of expertise, the regulator is often unable to assist and point them in the right direction when they run into technical problems. Inspectors going around hangars who are shit hot at the paperwork and will tear you a new one for an incorrectly filled in form, but unable to inform or answer questions regarding the tech side ofthe operation and barely know what they're looking at in some cases.
Surely all that makes some sort of case for having specialist regulators for various aspects. Could such be obtained by use of older/retired people from the trade?
...they’re now given endless latitude in the shades of grey interpretation of the black and white rules...
Yes in terms of setting the regulation, no in terms of policing it. Essentially the rules have EASA written at the top and the responsibility for oversight and enforcement is devolved to the National Aviation Authorities, the CAA in the U.K.
Which is the other side of the same problem. With the advent of EASA the CAA was stripped to a husk. There is zero expertise any more, the place is full of bureaucrats who endlessly debate the meaning of words in what are actually pretty simple rule sets. The result is endless shades of grey that are exploited.
The CAA used to be an Authority in every sense of the word; you went to them for the definitive answer, black or white. Now we have all that devolved to those who are supposed to be being regulated and they’re now given endless latitude in the shades of grey interpretation of the black and white rules.
It’s the crux of the MAX issue IMHO, the Regulator devolved the act of regulation to those they were supposed to regulate, Boeing, and gave them endless shades of grey to manoeuvre within.