FATALLY FLAWED

Investigators Rebuke Boeing and FAA for Allowing 737 MAX to Fly

A total of 346 people were killed in two crashes, which led to the jets being grounded around the world.

Investigators will blame Boeing and the Federal Aviation Authority for allowing Boeing 737 MAX jets to fly despite serious flaws in the planes’ automated flight-control system in a damning report to be released Friday. The report from a multiagency task force of experts will say Boeing didn’t do enough to explain its new control system to regulators, and that the FAA lacked the expertise to analyze what Boeing did share about the new plane. A draft of the report has been seen by The New York Times. The plane’s automated system, MCAS, played a role in two deadly crashes, in Indonesia last October and in Ethiopia in March. A total of 346 people were killed in the crashes, which led to the jets being grounded around the world. The report said the FAA was made aware of MCAS, but “the information and discussions about [it] were so fragmented and were delivered to disconnected groups” that it “was difficult to recognize the impacts and implications of this system.” Boeing is now updating the system to make it less powerful.