The FAA says it will require aircraft manufacturers to disclose the fine details of changes to safety-critical systems during the certification process for new aircraft. The agency told Reuters it will “establish milestones throughout the certification process that will help the agency assess whether any design changes to airplane systems should be considered novel or unusual, and therefore require additional scrutiny.” Comments will be accepted on the proposed new policies until Aug. 25.
The new policies are a direct result of the numerous probes into the FAA and Boeing’s actions during certification of the 737 MAX. Boeing engineers failed to disclose the impact of changes made to the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, which was a key factor in the crash of two MAXes. House and Senate investigation reports told the FAA it needed better oversight of certification.
It’s a good thing they did this after the horse left the barn, burned down the farmhouse and sold the land to a developer.
Otherwise someone might think that the FAA was incompetent.
The problem now shifts to how this change is enforced. Very quickly, evaluation of what is new-or-novel turns into “nothing new or novel will ever receive approval from this office, we only approve that which has already been proven”.
It also begs the question of whether the FAA has the manpower and expertise to actually evaluate the significance of the changes. For the past couple years it has been nearly impossible to get anything approved, no matter how small.