Davids Statement on FAA Oversight Hearing, Three Years After Lion Air 610

Representative Sharice Davids, Vice Chair of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, released the following statement after the Subcommittee on Aviation's oversight hearing of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA):

"Nearly three years after the Lion Air 610 crash, the first of the Boeing 737 MAX crashes that claimed 346 lives and raised serious questions about the safety of our skies, we are following up to make sure the mistakes that led to those tragedies never happen again.

As a member of the Aviation Subcommittee, I joined my colleagues in conducting 18 months of rigorous oversight, ending in a bipartisan bill to strengthen aviation safety and accountability—but our work does not stop there. I thank Administrator Dickson for joining us to share the FAA's efforts to ensure passenger safety and look forward to continuing our efforts to make American airspace the safest in the world."

Watch Davids' questioning in today's hearing here.

Background

Davids served as Vice Chair of the Subcommittee on Aviation during the 18-month Congressional investigation of the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, which entered commercial service in 2017 before suffering two deadly crashes within five months of each other, killing a total of 346 people, including eight Americans. The model was grounded in March 2019 pending further investigation into its safety.

• The Committee held five public hearings, obtained around 600,000 pages of documents from Boeing, the FAA, and others, and interviewed dozens of current and former employees.
• In September 2020, the Committee released a report on the serious flaws and missteps in the design, development, and certification of the aircraft.
• Davids' questioning of former Boeing President and CEO Dennis Muilenburg in October 2019 helped inform the report's findings.
• The Committee found that Boeing succumbed to financial pressure to rush the 737 MAX through the certification process, failed to properly train pilots on the novel MCAS system, and Boeing employees downplayed or outright concealed information about the system to FAA regulators.
• Davids remained committed to the issue and protecting Kansans' lives and livelihoods, criticizing Boeing for paying its fired CEO $60 million while Kansas aviation workers were laid off.

Based on the report and recommendations from the Naitonal Transportation Saftey Board, the Committee wrote the Aircraft Certification Reform and Accountability Act. The bill strengthens the FAA's direct oversight of aircraft certification-a key issue in the Boeing 737 MAX investigation-and implements new saftey reporting requirements and whistleblowers protections, among other accountabilty measures. It has passed the House with bipartisan support on November 18, 2020, around the same time the 737 MAX was ungrounded, and became law in December of 2020.