U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao requested Inspector General Calvin Scovel III audit the certification process for the much-scrutinized Boeing 737-MAX 8 aircraft.
The request follows the grounding of all Max 8 aircraft by the FAA, due to two separate, fatal crashes within the past five months. Those incidents led to the planes’ grounding or outright banning of the planes by dozens of countries, following the deaths of nearly 350 passengers. Both Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have been under heavy scrutiny since the latest incident, when an Ethiopian Airlines crash killed 157 people.
“Safety is the top priority of the Department, and all of us are saddened by the fatalities resulting from the recent accidents involving two Boeing 737-MAX 8 aircraft in Indonesia and Ethiopia,” Chao said in her letter. “ As you know, Boeing requested an amended type certification for this aircraft in January 2012, and the Federal Aviation Administration issued the certification in March 2017.”
Chao has requested an objective and detailed factual history of the events leading up to the certification of the Boeing 737-MAX 8 aircraft. Chao indicated in her letter that the department intends to compare those records to FAA safety procedures and indicated it will be utilized in the Department’s ultimate decision on the craft.
“Please keep me apprised of the states of your work as it progresses,” Chao said, indicating more to come on this evolving incident.
Boeing has separately indicated they would cooperate with the inspector general’s review.