Having said that, within the airplane world you have to look at whats happening and go, how comfortable am i flying in this airplane versus that airplane . To me personally, i keep track of whats happening for obvious reasons aeupd and im worried about whats 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 publics 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 theyre going to focus on safety, thats going to come at some expense. I understand theres problems in both of those elements for boeing. Would you say thats 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 its 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 Factors 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 well 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 companys headquarters. What does that have to do with Human Factors . Mr. Meshkati Human Factors work very good when youre 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, im 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 doesnt exist in a holistic way . Youre 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, lets 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. Thats 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 thats a bad idea, thats 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 worlds experts on these technologies. Thats not what theyre there for. Mr. De luis the key thing is that the f. A. A. Has to have the ability to interface with the worlds experts and thats a different set of skills thats needed. Youre 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 thats critical. If you have that, then you have a chance of being able to appropriately interdays with the interface with the people youre supposed to regulate. If you doent have that, youre sort of dont have that, youre 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 were going to stay behind this. I appreciate the chairmans attention to this issue. Doctor, i want to come to you and i think im saying your name right, correct me if im 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 15minute time slots, trouble shooting issues and i think in 15 minutes its pretty remarkable what people are able to do. And its 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 maintenancerelated 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, maam, 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 dont 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 theres 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 cant 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 im not surprised that there are lags in their responses because thats just the way it is. But i cant speak for them. Sen. Blackburn i will tell you, reading the report and boeings 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 were seeing with boeing so id 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 its 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 its 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. Tkfrpt afrpts o. Tkfrpt 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 boeings Safety Culture presents to that process. Sen. Warnock i share that concern which is why im 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 im sure youve 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, its outsourcing. Outsourcing key responsibilities, none more important than safety oversight, to someone else, to someone else, to someone else. I submit that while were 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 cant 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, theres 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 safetyrelated 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, were going to go back to the way things were. And that cant happen. As you say, its 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 thats 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 visavis 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. Sfrpt 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 im 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 its 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 were trying to keep the government at pace with technological change. So youre 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 se