The committee on transportation infrastructure will come to order. I ask unanimous consent that security be authorized to declare basis of the hearing without objection, so ordered. I also ask unanimous consent for the Ranking Member of the full committee to be recognized for ten minutes each i will be making to unanimous requests for documents from the attorneys said. I see nothing that is export sensitive in these documents will be making a unanimous consent request pistol into the export control act and make a unanimous consent request to enter the documents on the list into the hearing record. This list includes the export control documents theyve reviewed all these documents on both lists and with i would ask unanimous consent that they be disclosed pursuant to the code. I want to reserve my right to object. The reason for doing that is we have had at least two that i can remember noting the industries and that includes maritime, transit, you name it and they would love to have the opportunity to get their hands on technology from the Aviation Industry as well. And it concerns me we have talked about this and have gone over this. Making these documents they have all been made available to everybody on the committee. They are putting them out there in the Public Domain i think it is a problem and we are cutting ourselves off at the legs when it comes to the technology. It concerns me in a big way. Having said that, i will withdraw my right to object. I think we can get the answers without peace bu these but i wie that request. I didnt take a backseat to anybody regarding china i voted against the most favored nation status and post them going to the wto and in the u. S. Technology and unfair. Trade practices i dont think there is anything in there that would be of any utility to the chinese. But in any case i recognize your concerns. I just have to finish a briefing this pursuant to section 48202 because withholding such information is contrary and without objection, so ordered. I would ask unanimous consent to enter the records. Without objection, so ordered. Lets proceed now to the hearing. I first want to recognize the families that are here today. A fifth place with families. I dont know if ive met with all of you here today. I want to convey my condolences one year and one day after the crash. A very somber day we shouldnt have to be here if we are and we are going to get to the bottom of this and fix it and see that it never happens again. With that i think the witnesses for being here. The fourth hearing the committee has held given the extraordinary interest i thought that its best to do it in the full committee. I know they told us they wanted to wait until the airplane was ungrounded but i felt it was important to testify before that happened. Something was drastically wrong. As you know the committee is conducting a very robust investigation. Weve never undertaken an investigation of this magnitude in the second oldest kennedy in the United StatesCongress Committee in the United States congress. We have received hundreds of thousands of pages of documents from boeing. Theyve been cooperative in providing the documents and agree that we could use those documents in the public hearing. And we have received tens of thousands of pages from the faa and we have conducted some hearings with the employees and we have others that we wish to interview. We are told we have to be in line behind the justice department, so those are still forthcoming. There are a lot of Unanswered Questions that we need to get to the bottom of. We know that a novel system took these two planes into an uncontrollable altitude after it triggered something to do with faulty sensors these were wired to the one sensor and in may be then acting administrator sat there and i asked them they said yes. Then how could it have been approved to trigger a single point of failure and he had no answer to that. How could they approve it, how could the manufacturer do that and he had no good answer. We will continue to pursue the roots of this. We do know that one was in the first version of the flight manual and in the benign system when it became a radical system that could trigger a catastrophic failure, it came out. Some of that was discussed in the senate yesterday and will be discussed again today from the chief test pilot in the instant message as it seems inexplicab inexplicable. Secondly, we do know that boeing engineers proposed placing and enunciate her in the cockpit, but again it came out in later versions were the actual production version and then it wasnt until after 1 a. M. Air that boeing informed anyone and is still at that point i think softpedaling that it was in the plane and i talked to a lot of pissed off pilot specifically where the backup system lacks how can we be the backup if we dont know something is going to take over a plane . Theres quite a bit of this content out in the Aviation System about that. We now know that boeing and the faa and some pilots would act in four seconds, but they had information that we will get to a little bit later in this hearing. But some pilots might react in ten seconds or longer and if that happens, the results would be catastrophic and result in the loss of the aircraft as it has happened twice. That they got the 12th or 13h iteration. And then to develop the system to go through Pilot Training or recertification. That drove the whole process. Boeing Southwest Airlines 1 milliondollar per plane rebate but the pilots had to be retrained program imagine the pressures from the top on down to the low level engineers who say what . Know know know we cannot have that. That is 300 million for that one other contract. That is a marketing advantage. That the angle of attack disagree light which was a standard feature on all 730 sevens did not work. Unless they bought the upgraded package and that was an inadvertent error in developing the upgraded package. That may be so. And then decided to delay for three years through 2020 did not tell the faa or the customers or the pilots about this until after the lie in air crash. That is inexplicable. They say its not necessary for safe operation of the max. To keep everybody in the dark and have that is there. Its not lighting up. It cant. Was serious disagreement. And it was included in the flight manual. To include something in the manual that does not work and then something that does work to cause catastrophic issues is not in the manual. What is that all about . We know there is tremendous tremendous pressure on production. Whistleblowers have contacted us regarding features that engineers wanted on the macs that were denied because of the rush to get the plane out the door. We have from an internal whistleblower a survey conducted november 16 that 39 percent of boeing employees surveyed experienced undue pressure, 29 said they were concerned about consequences perhaps losing their job if they reported these incidents. We now and know at least one manager implored the general manager to shut down the 737 max production line because of safety concerns a couple months before the tragic crash. There is a lot we dont know. We dont know what would happen. We dont know if the pilots had Simulator Training that replicated the system what would happen. We dont know why boeing designed a plane with a point of failure that is inexplicable and an excusable and unprecedented in the history of mass aviation production. We do know and we have seen pressures from wall street have a way to influence the decision of the best companies in the worst way to endanger the public and jeopardizing the good work of countless hardworking employees on the factory lines. I hope thats not the story that is ultimately written over this long admired company. So we meet today. We need answers. But we also know that we need reform how commercial aircraft are certified and how manufacturers, not just boeing but are all watch and overseen by the regulators. Now today the investigation isnt just getting answers but how to make the system safer. With that i yelled time to the Ranking Member. Thank you mister chairman. Want to extend my condolences to the family and friends i cannot imagine how hard it is to sit and go through this process i will divert from my statement for just a minute and associate myself with a couple of comments the chairman made and i as a pilot have a piece of equipment in the airplane that i dont know about is something that concerns me in a big way. To say that backup system it does concern me but i do want to point out as well that when it comes to airbus it was mentioned with airbus customers wanted to look at airbus as opposed to the boeing product but in airbus the pilot is the backup you cannot shut it off a very similar system in a boeing max you cannot shut it off. It overrides the pilot. Overrides the pilot. Now when it can be shut off when it comes to being a pilot you want to shut off a system that has failed and fly the plane and i have harped on that over and over again and its my hope that this testimony today helps us to understand the decisions boeing made between 21 2009 and 2017 regarding the design of the max. Some of these decisions were reviewed by the boeing organization the Designation Authority that is on behalf of the faa. While the oda was authorized to act as a regulator of the faa they retain the ultimate responsibility and compliance and safety regulations that still lies within the faa. The chairman said we have a lot of other people to hear from and i do want to hear from the boeing leadership at the time of these decisions to get a complete picture i would like to hear from officials over there at the time between 2012 and 2017 these decisions were being made and i hope i can get a commitment and im sure you have no problem with that. We have to hear from everybody. In many times i have said they have revealed problems if these investigations reveal problems with certification then congress should act to fix those specific and identifiable problems and thats the issue to identify what those problems are. In the aftermath we cannot just throw the safety of the Aviation System on one single factor no one single factor contributes to an accident. I heard Safety Experts refer to the swiss cheese model love accident causation. If you use this model you have many layers if you visualize them as slices of cheese with holes to represent the weaknesses, some of those are due to conditions some are active failures. But when an accident occurs when those weaknesses lineup is when you have a catastrophic failure. In context of the 737 max you have to consider all of the layers, all of them with the protection and safety and trying to determine what weaknesses are out there trying to determine what they are. As investigator of the indonesian accident said the non contributing factors would not have happened the crash would not have happened the decided certification of the 737 max is the focus of a number of investigations. Earlier this year boeing took responsibility for the design weaknesses and have been working on a software fix which we are waiting to hear about. What other weaknesses with the faa oversight we are going to address including pilot displays and training and today we will hear about the status of all of those efforts. But i want to hear how they lineup with recommendations of the joint authority the first completed review of the max certification with advanced aviation and Technical Expertise is due out soon. While they did not call for an end to the allegation programs it did highlight bureaucratic deficiencies between boeing and the faa and we have to address those and i know we will. The concern that occurred with the report and is committed to working on these recommendations which is good to say that happens but lastly i want to hear about documents related to the pilots and im sure you will do that other investigations are moving forward as well. Last month the ntsb issued a recommendation report focused on the assumption made on the design and certification process related to Human Factors design and certification cannot be the sole focus of our efforts. I have said this before so with one layer of that cheese mode model, over the last few months other weaknesses that have played a role in these accidents have surfaced. Reports earlier called into evidence submitted into lion air investigation with the installation and calibration of the faulty angle. This was also whistleblower statements raising significant concerns with lion air operations and Maintenance Programs former chief engineer for Ethiopian Airlines found a whistleblower complaint with the recordkeeping and Maintenance Training and also the air carrier went to the maintenance records of the 737 max alleged the day after the accident. Unfortunately operational pressures and robust Safety Culture can negatively impact aviation safety thats another layer of that model. The ntsb has confirmed along with certification operational factors in addition with that review the department of transportation at the request of the committee to begin a review of those standards and the impact and thats another thing i have talked about as a potential problem. I want to be Crystal Clear this is not an effort to blame the pilots. I also dont absolve boeing of its responsibility the New York TimesMagazine Article describe the changing nature of the industry of the impact on airmen ship also decadelong transformation of the entire business of flying that they became so automated that the air travel boom could take over the need for more pilots. I was getting letters from airlines all over the world because i had atp on my license they were offering me jobs and to come fly for the. And pilots can master Cockpit Technology but if it fails they have to be able to fly the plane and not by the computer. None of this is a reflection on lion air or ethiopia. They were fighting for their lives thats the bottom line. It is on the broader pressures present today of the global aviation economy and incumbent on the airline whose name is on the side of the plane to make sure their pilots are properly trained to the level they need to be not rushed into the cockpit. That is where some of the blame lies. And ethiopia in particular when the government owns the airline and they put pilots in thei their, something that is above their head is not the pilots fault. Look at who put them in the position to be responsible for hundreds of lives. In line with that swiss cheese moment with those layers of Protection Training and Maintenance Programs they must also be explored with all of the weaknesses have to be addressed is to believe the faa is the Gold Standard in aviation safety and once they certify the fix to the max i volunteered to be the first person right alongside administrator dixon and the first flight of the max eight. Regarding to the max accidents all of those issues need to be addressed but only after we have work that has yet to be completed. Jumping to conclusions only risks more harm. The us Safety Record speaks for itself and i will stand up to anybody who tries to question that it is the safest mode of transportation in history and with that i appreciate the opportunity mister chairman and i look forward to todays hearing. I turn to the chairman of the subcommittee. Thank you chairman. I will be brief i want to get to the reason why we are here today which is to get direct answers from boeing. The faa did release a video Opening Statement you can find my full comments there. In summary the 326 lives lost Ethiopian Airline crashes are constant reminders of the importance of this committees work and if we do not address systemic safety issues in aviation today some victims Family Members are here with us today. Others are watching on live stream and your presence and tireless advocacy are critical to what we are doing today. Thank you for that. You deserve answers. And rightfully you expect congress to act. Following my original recommendations i do want to say i see one undeniable conclusion the process by which the faa is certifying the aircraft is in need of repair. It is no accident there are few airplane accidents and makes it all the more tragic when there is one it makes it even worse when there are two. So the committees Investigation Continues to maintain safety as a guiding principle and use all the tools at our disposal will and i youll back. Now we turn to the Ranking Member on the subcommittee aviation. Thank you mister chairman for holdings hearing today. Yesterday was one year since the lie in air tragedy. I also want to join everyone sitting up here to offer condolences to all the ethiopian family victims. Everybody in this town and to deal with billions of trillions of dollars and these acronyms and process that often makes sense and often times you see people that just forget about objectives. Wire we actually doing this cracks what is the purpose that we go through the regulations and procedures . Why . Its always about people. That is what we are here for four fellow americans and fellow citizens. And it is amazing to me just being here and im sorry to every one of you and your pictures are incredibly powerful. I used to be a rockclimbing instructor we would have somebodys son or daughter or brother or sister and when you are rockclimbing brick if you lose somebody on a rock there is no room for error. Air travel is the same thing you cannot tell them to pull over to the side if there is a noise coming out of the engine. Its not an option. This process has got to stay focused on the risk air travel poses and the fact you cannot pull over to the side you have to have redundancy. There is a lot going on right now with all the different reports and investigations and i will run through those in the moment but there is