lives in ohio's 13th congressional district and beyond. thank you, mr. speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to clause 12-a of rule 1, the chair declares the house in recess until noon today. we get you were and we go and do something productive. safety is always a trade.

having said that, within the airplane world you have to look at what's happening and go, how comfortable am i flying in this airplane versus that airplane? to me personally, i keep track of what's happening for obvious reasons aeupd and i'm worried about what's happening. now if i had to fly somewhere because -- and there was no other option, i would absolutely fly it versus driving, for example, because i can make that trade. >> i think the public's entitled to more confidence in the security and safety of flying. there seems to be like two issues. about safety. one are the practices and the culture of the manufacturer. and the other is how much they put profit ahead of safety. because it is a tradeoff. sen. welch: the more they're going to focus on safety, that's going to come at some expense.

i understand there's problems in both of those elements for boeing. would you say that's true? >> it was very much discussed i think in this book by peter robinson, "flying blind" and the issue of putting basically the -- this is a delicate balance. between safety and profitability. we know that these companies are not in philanthropic business. they need to make money. but it's really the job -- this is one of the tenants of safety culture. to give proportional attention to safety goals versus production goals. and in the case of boeing, unfortunately, based on the way that is chronicled in this book, that happened after the merger.

sen. welch: can you attribute some of that change to after the merger? >> yes. sen. welch: what the die a number -- what was the dynamic? >> if you look at the history -- in fact, i was reading another book called "blind trust" about the series of problems that -- [indiscernible] -- crashes. there was a push to make more aircraft and not pay attention to detail. that unfortunately according to my reading of the book and some of the series of great articles by mr. case, it also chronicles this issue. and we have seen that, unfortunately. sen. welch: let me ask you one last question. what would you have to see from boeing to -- for you to have confidence that they have successfully developed human factors as a technical

discipline in design practice? mr. meshkati: i personally, i like to see the human factor's person, the top person have equal power and authority as the chief engineer. this is what i long to see. sen. welch: thank you. i yield back. thank you all. >> thank you. following up on that. we may have a couple more members coming. but if not we'll conclude the hearing soon. but, doctor, your report states that during the development of the 57 and 67, they were the gold standard in part because human factor specials worked closely and collectively in seattle. sen. cantwell: then the respect goesen to to -- report goes on to say, it was eroded to aerz see of administration issues, including decentralization,

downsizing and relocation of the company's headquarters. what does that have to do with human factors? mr. meshkati: human factors work very good when you're close to epg nears and system designers. they exchange information, they work together, they work on the design of the system. and then they work on the training and they solve that problem together. again, i'm not in the business of promoting book but chapter nine of this book, which is about human factors, which i strongly recommend that, that shows the way that the demise of the human factor, erosion of the human factors. one of them, for example, is chronicled in the book, is when simulator trainings and that was totally moved away from the design from seattle to florida or somewhere else. that is when you see a problem. sen. cantwell: i think that was just the training, though, right?

mr. meshkati: the training but before that also, during the design. because you get some of that input from the training coming back to the designers. sen. cantwell: you think that doesn't exist in a holistic way? you're saying? mr. meshkati: absolutely. holistic and central. sen. cantwell: ok. well, i wanted to ask about this in regards to the f.a. afrpt. most of the report -- f.a.a. most of the report is focused on what you can do to make sure that you have a strong safety culture within the organization. and how much that has to be backed up by the f.a.a. what does the f.a.a. need to do to have its own safety system improvements, to make sure that it is thinking about human factors or across the board, a variety of issues that can enhance security, particularly at a time of changing technology? how do we get an f.a.a. who is as up to speed? they said, let's have this group that is at the beginning of the

certification process, kind of detail out more of the risk factors so that that discussion could happen. >> that's actually -- we focused a lot about -- especially since january 5, on the need to put more f.a.a. boots on the grounds in the factory and i am no means saying that's a bad idea, that's an excellent idea. what you point out about the technology is why i think that o.d.a. or delegation of some sort is here with us forever. because the f.a.a. does not have the resources to be able to be the world's experts on these technologies. that's not what they're there for. mr. de luis: the key thing is that the f.a.a. has to have the ability to interface with the world's experts and that's a different set of skills that's needed. you're not going to be

conducting the cutting edge research but you should be able to talk to the people that are developing that technology and be able to understand it and in particular understand how it impacts the safety and the operation of the aircraft. i keep going back to something that was said earlier about the need for the f.a.a. to really step up its own estimates. i think that that's critical. if you have that, then you have a chance of being able to appropriately interdays with the -- interface with the people you're supposed to regulate. if you doent have that, you're sort of -- don't have that, you're sort of spectators at the party here. that should be encouraged or directed or whatever it is, however it is that you do it, to move in that direction. sen. cantwell: thank you. senator blackburn, are you ready? sen. blackburn: thank you and i want to thank all of you for being with us today.

i think this aviation safety issue is something that we are all concerned about and we're going to stay behind this. i appreciate the chairman's attention to this issue. doctor, i want to come to you and i think i'm saying your name right, correct me if i'm not. i was reading a report about the aerospace maintenance competition where the 450 airplane mechanics met to show off their skills and they were working in 15-minute time slots, trouble shooting issues and i think in 15 minutes it's pretty remarkable what people are able to do. and it's important to know that there are skilled people, you look at what has happened with

these different reports, alaska airlines, united airlines, the boeing planes, that have come up. so when you look at this and you see the skills training that some of them have, where is the disconnect in this? where is -- is it a lack of skill, is it a lack of training or preparation or, now he is, it i -- you know, is it inattention? why are we beginning to have such a negative impact, see such a neglect impafbg on the -- impact on safety? mr. meshkati: thank you, senator. this issue is studied here but your question reminds me of an airline and the accident that it had around i think 1998 or so. and it was started with the aviation maintenance-related problem.

at that time, f.a.a. really looked at the very heart, looked at the aviation phaeupt nance and -- maintenance and i think created a program called national plan for aviation maintenance. and then at that time one board member of ntsb who was later elected to ntsb, the honorable john, pushed on this a lot. the issue of aviation maintenance, ma'am, is extremely sensitive to the human factors and safety culture issues that my colleague is talking about here. sen. blackburn: ok, let me do this. dr. dillinger, let me come to you because i know you conducted hours of interviews for the safety report that you produced. did you speak with any of the whistleblowers when you conducted those interviews? dr. dillinger: as far as i

recollect, we did not speak to -- sen. blackburn: why did you not talk to any of the whistleblowers? dr. dillinger: that was not what the pursue of the panel and at the time i don't think we were aware of the whistleblowers. sen. blackburn: ok. let me ask you this, then. does boeing do enough to ensure that their employees know that there will be no retaliation if they come forward and report safety issues? ms. dillinger: the panel believes they need to do a lot more than what they are currently doing. sen. blackburn: and, you know, one of the things that we have heard from ntsb is there's a problem getting information from boeing. do you think that bogey executives -- boeing executives do not understand when there is an investigation they need to

come forward with complete information? >> i can't speak for the executives. i will say boeing is a very large and very bureaucratic company. mr. de luis: that produces a lot of paper and i'm not surprised that there are lags in their responses because that's just the way it is. but i can't speak for them. sen. blackburn: i will tell you, reading the report and boeing's safety culture being described as inadequate and confusing, this is something that harms the flying public and i appreciate the attention to the issue. thank you, madam chairman. sen. cantwell: thank you, senator blackburn. senator warnock. >> thank you. the stakes are too high for commercial aircraft to have the systemic problems we're seeing with boeing so i'd like to examine how we got here.

sen. warnock: yes or no, through organization designation authorizations or o.d.a.'s, can the f.a.a. delegate certain safety certification and other responsibilities to an aircraft manufacturer like boeing? yes or no? mr. de luis: yes. but currently -- yes because it's done with other manufacturers. but there are issues as described in our report that makes us be leiery of saying, yeah, go ahead and just do it. i think boeing needs to prove that it's capable. sen. warnock: the question is, are they able to delegate certain safety and certification responsibilities to an aircraft

-- so they are? the answer is yes, correct? ok. so, dr. dillinger, yes or no, can an aircraft manufacturer like boeing subcontract manufacturing responsibilities for, say, a fuselage of its signature max aircraft line to another company? ms. dillinger: the work of the panel i think would say yes, with o. tk-frpt afrpt's -- o. tk-frpt a.'s, we heard d.c. o.d.a.'s, we heard successful examples of o.d.a. delegation. however, the concerns remain about the risk that boeing as i safety -- boeing's safety culture presents to that process. sen. warnock: i share that concern which is why i'm asking the question. yes or no, can a manufacturer subcontracted by boeing such as spirit arrow spa*eus systems -- aerosystems, assign manufacturer

responsibilities to an international affiliate? malaysia, for example? mr. meshkati: 787 is now made all over the world. wings in one country, the other wing in another country, fuselage in another country, they are doing that. sen. warnock: so the authorization can then be passed from f.a.a. to a manufacturer, the manufacturer can subcontract that manufacturing responsibility to another entity and then the manufacturer subcontracted by boeing can assign manufacturing responsibilities to an international affiliate? which i'm sure you've realized that when we walk through step by step is a supply chain of the boeing max 9 aircraft at the heart of the near catastrophic

door plug blowout that happened on january -- in january, 2024, to an alaska airlines flight. you know, they made words for this. you can call it delegating, subcontracting, reassigning at the end of the day, it's outsourcing. outsourcing key responsibilities, none more important than safety oversight, to someone else, to someone else, to someone else. i submit that while we're focused on boeing, this is obviously not just a boeing problem. this is far too common across aviation systems and its suppliers. whether the result of poor leadership, focus on production targets, profit margins at all costs, even the cost of safety, or some combination of both, congress must take a serious look at this culture of outsourcing and its safety

implications. this is an instance in which we can't afford a mistake. it costs too much. dr. dillinger, what more can boeing do to improve its safety culture and our own responsibility for the safety of its products? ms. dillinger: thank you, senator. the panel focused a great deal on safety culture and there is so much that they could be doing. part of it has to do with the timing and if they were to accelerate the efforts and the panel thinks that would be beneficial. there has been a very soft start to that, to implementing the training, to getting feedback, back from employees, via their own surveys, to providing workshops, to focusing specifically on training at different levels.

so, for example, executive training, yes, but down through the other layers of the organization to managers and supervisors, targeted training, there's multiple ways that they could be going after that and as they look at a more comprehensive way where they really dive in and in a more timely way address that, the panel felt that that would be important and that it was in our recommendations. sen. warnock: thank you so very much for that. last question. what more can congress do to encourage both the f.a.a. and manufacturers like boeing to take direct responsibility for the safety of aircraft and our aviation system? mr. de luis: i believe that congress and this committee needs to keep essentially the pressure on to make sure that the waivers are not granted on safety-related issues, for example. that would be a good thing.

because they -- right now there are a handful of waivers on the max that directly effects safety. but you need to keep the spotlight on this because during our interviews we heard often the sentiment expressed, yeah, this is happening now but as soon as everybody moves on to something else, we're going to go back to the way things were. and that can't happen. as you say, it's too expensive and the cost in human lives is way too high. mr. meshkati: thank you, senator. that is also related to an earlier question by senator cantwell. i think what congress can do is through the f.a.a. and that's also related to s.m.s. there is a document which is signed by f.a.a. administrator and ntsb called state safety program. this is something that the

united states does with international civil aviation organization. in this one, this is very interesting. it talks about the safety management responsibility for the state, for the application of f.a.a. what i would suggest and what can congress do is to create another panel like the one that we are in to look at the implementation of this report and how does the united states stand vis-a-vis the support? if the state safety program is being fully implemented, what needs to be done? because that has a kind of impact or it can tremendously impact f.a.a.'s power on using basically, in the case of s.m.s., for example, in the united states is only f.a.a. has

the s.m.s. for air traffic controlling. s.m. s-frpt needs -- s.m.s. needs, there is a notice of rulemaking for s.m.s. but s.m.s. needs to be fully corps rated and if this document is fully implemented a at f.a.a. and other places, i think that would be a good solution. sen. warnock: thank you so much. i know i'm way out of time. i appreciate your indulgence, madam chair, and i look forward to working with my colleagues on this committee to improve aviation safety. sen. cantwell: thank you so much. just to clarify again, one more time on this issue, because it's related to what he says and senator snit and i want to emphasize, we represent big aviation states. we want this to be right. and we definitely believe in the workforce that we have in our states. we want them to continue to grow in expertise and excellence. so recommendation 30 and 31 of your report says foster an effective safety culture and

publish a road map for workforce development with engineers and inspectors and oversee s.m.s. for design and manufacturing organizations and partner with industry to measure the success of s.m.s. and design an organization joint he will review these -- review these measures of success on a regular basis. those are your two key recommendations so the f.a.a. is now in this rulemaking that is going to come out in the next 90 days and so what specifically do you want to see in that rulemaking that will help guarantee this success? and then secondly, what do we do about this problem that dr. de luis suggests which is a whole of government issue, if you ask me, because we could ask dr. dillinger about space in general, but we're trying to keep the government at pace with technological change. so you're saying the f.a.a. may not have some of these people and so how do we -- what do we need to do?

because obviously we do want to listen to what these sectors say and they have input. they really have some of the smartest people about this technology, but we also have to get our oversight correctly. so how do we make sure the f.a.a. rulemaking has what we want to see in it and how do we deal with this lack of engineering, if you will, skill set at the f.a.a.? not at the company. at the company i think it exists, i think we're just not listening closely enough. mr. de luis: the answer to your first question, s.m. s-frpt isn't new. it's been around in the aviation world now for 30 years. sen. cantwell: but it was voluntarily implemented as part of a 2015 consent decree, instead of being a real mandatory s.m.s. i'm hoping the f.a.a. gets this right this time. mr. de luis: it's been in the aviation industry for 15 years. not at boeing. in the sense, all the f.a.a. has to do is look at what it's done

successfully with our innovations like the airlines and others and apply those same standards, the same rules to boeing. so it's not a blank sheet of paper is what i'm saying. they got something to daw on. with regards to your other question, i've always been a strong advocate of government agencies like the f.a.a. drawing on the resources of the national academies. i mean, i see, when new technology enters a field, let's say, for example, a.i., because that's the one that's the new technology de jure right now. i've always been an advocate that you have these national academies right down the street here with members that you can draw upon to basically go in and advise and give -- people know a lot more about these subjects than any of us. and i don't -- some organizations do it more than others. but i think that that's a resource that f.a.a. and nasa and other agencies don't use

enough, in my opinion. mr. meshkati: the national academy have just one good news. f.a.a. has gone to national academy and national academy has created a panel of they call it community of experts for risk analysis of transport aircraft. and that one i have the privilege of being a member, we meet over zoom weekly. and i think it has been great. because f.a.a. has reached out to nuclear power industry for that community of experts, how do they do p.r.a., public risk assessment, they do that here. back to you, senator cantwell, i think the two recommendations you brought up, 31 and 30, is fantastic. that's exactly that i think in light of this state safety program, if these two combined together, i think that's going to be the paradigm shift for

s.m.s. sen. cantwell: i think it's pretty simple to get a real s. ph-frpt s. and i think it's -- s.m.s. and i think it's a great idea as we envisioned to get a panel of experts. so i'm glad to see that that's actually happening with the national academies as it relates to this input. we'll have to query the f.a.a. more on exactly how broad that can go. dr. dilleringer, i'm going to -- dillinger, i'm going to leave the last question to you. as painful as all this is, to me we can get through it and i think you're referencing your work on the columbia. that was also a very painful moment for nasa, a very painful moment for this committee. i sat on the oversight investigation of that, that the committee did, in joint session with other senate committees. so -- but we did get through that. what do you think are the lessons learned here? how can you -- how can we

successfully move past this and on to the success that we want to see in aviation? because i think the foundation is very strong. we have a great hundred years of aviation success. we want to build on it. we want to be known for the successes that the united states has had in aviation. i think the elements are there. but what is it that we need to do to learn from what columbia learned on how to move forward? ms. dillinger: thank you, senator. that has been my life for decades. i think what we learned from columbia that's applicable here and was applicable to the report is how important people are and the relationships between people. that's what the safety culture issues all address. it's about trust, it's about communication, it's about being there. and having a workforce that comes in, that is prepared, that's trained, that's energetic, that's curious, that's dedicated, that will work

their heart out, an organization can recover from a catastrophic loss when that's happened by pulling all of those resources together and focusing on then the mission and how everybody works toward the mission to make that happen. but to do that, all of those parts, including the processes, have to come together with safety as a priority where people understand that it's just part of doing business. it's -- brian o'connor, the former chief of safety for nasa used to talk about, safety isn't the mission. it's how we do the mission. and that's a critical lesson learned for us. sen. cantwell: thank you. well, i want to thank the witnesses again today. the record will remain open until may 15. any senators wishing to submit questions for the record should do so by may 1. we ask responses be returned by

may 15. that concludes our hearing today thank you. today. thank you for your report and for your willingness to be here today. we're adjourned. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024]

>> that's a good question. i don't know yet. >> what you have learned from this process today that will form a separate aviation bill that you said you also wanted in addition to f.a.a.? sen. cantwell: one of the reasons why we wanted them to come, we originally were thinking we'd go to the f.a.a. and then the company and we wanted to hear from ntsb about the investigation. we wanted some of the information from the investigation because we thought that would be illuminating but that's still challenged in some ways. so we thought that the work of this panel, because it was so specific to the culture, needed to be illuminated because i think when we get to some of the discussions with the f.a.a., that they had a lot of responsibilities and one of them now they're executing on, we'll

see what they come out in their order. it can't be a light -- s.m.s.-lite. it has to be real safety structure culture. what i heard today was just how -- i'd already read the report obviously and thought highly of it, but what you heard from their discussion with members is, like, this can be accomplished. this can be accomplished. it's not like overly bureaucratic or cumbersome. it's really about a culture and just like she said at the end, it's not -- it's not the function, it's how the mission -- it's not the mission, it's the success of the mission. and i think that that's what we're just trying to say. this isn't like overly bureaucratic. it's just getting it done and getting -- listening to the people who have the most advice. reporter: do you think you'll have enough time to get a separate aviation bill done this year? and still hearing from other panels? sen. cantwell: again, it depends on what else happens in the investigations. but i think so. yeah.

just because last time when we got it done, we got it done and then we worked with the -- i think we got it done and then we got it out within like two months of getting it done in committee and working with the house. so it depends obviously. the fall being an election year could make some changes but -- and i can't remember whether we got that done in a lame duck or not. where's melissa. go grab melissa. or you might know. >> appropriations bill in 2020. sen. cantwell: so it was after the election. so i think that gives us, you know, time too. but i think what we decided was that there was so much right now on safety in f.a.a. with the number of air traffic controllers, near misses, aviation inspectors, that we wanted to get it done right now. that we didn't want to miss that opportunity. i think it helps us actually focus more on -- just like he said, it was a good start but it's not the ending period. so the