The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation recently questioned Robert Sumwalt, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) chairman, on aviation safety and automated systems in commercial airplanes.
The NTSB released seven safety recommendations in September related to two Boeing 737 MAX crashes; the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General released recommendations in 2016 designed to help airlines and aerospace manufacturers address the growing reliance of automation in commercial aircraft; and the International Civil Aviation Organization recommended in 2013 that civil aviation authorities require aerospace manufacturers to adopt safety management systems to identify and control risks.
Legislation introduced by Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), the committee’s ranking member, Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) would implement the agency’s recommendations.
“We issued these seven recommendations a month ago because we did identify holes in the design certification process,” Sumwalt said. “We found that, when pilots are faced with multiple alerts, they’re not performing or reacting in the way that Boeing thought that they would react when they developed their design assumptions.”
There are many benefits to safety management systems in transportation, Sumwalt said, and it would be a good idea for manufacturers to have a safety management system in place.