New Audit Announcements

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The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is responsible for overseeing the safety and certification of all civilian aircraft manufactured and operated in the United States. During the original certification process for the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, Boeing included limited information on the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) in its initial briefings to FAA; MCAS was later cited as a contributing factor to two fatal Boeing 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019. In addition, in August 2017, Boeing engineers identified that not all 737 MAX 8 aircraft were equipped with an Angle-of-Attack (AOA) disagree alert despite intending for it to be standard for the fleet. The Chairmen of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and its Aviation Subcommittee requested this audit. This will be our fourth review related to FAA’s certification of the 737 MAX. Our objectives will be to evaluate FAA’s compliance with applicable statutes, regulations, and policies in overseeing Boeing actions for (1) the inoperability of the AOA disagree alert on the majority of the MAX fleet in 2019 and (2) the inclusion of MCAS as part of the speed trim in the 737 MAX design.