The battery woes that have grounded the global fleet of Boeing 787s have
raised a persistent question about how the Federal Aviation
Administration certified the Dreamliner’s cutting-edge design. The
answer: Boeing, not the FAA, largely vouched for the airplane’s safety.
WASHINGTON — The battery woes that have
indefinitely grounded Boeing 787s have raised questions about how the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certified the cutting-edge aircraft.
But few may realize it was Boeing, not FAA inspectors, that largely vouched for the Dreamliner’s safety.
The tests on the lithium-ion batteries at the center of Boeing’s
unprecedented crisis were conducted by the company. And the people the
FAA designated on its behalf to ensure that the batteries conformed to
its safety regulations also were Boeing employees.
That shift toward “self-certification” accelerated during the past
decade even as critics say advances in aerospace technologies have
created greater need for closer independent scrutiny. Under streamlining
begun in 2005, the FAA has granted Boeing in-house oversight for new
planes in production and approval of major repairs and alterations.
In a 2011 review, the inspector general of
the Department of Transportation found the FAA in one case delegated
some 90 percent of the determination for regulatory compliance for new
aircraft design to outside representatives. The Inspector General’s
Office would not identify the company, but the report focused on Boeing,
Cessna Aircraft and Bombardier-Learjet.
The FAA is examining its own certification of the 787 in 2011, even
as an international probe continues into what caused a fire and another
battery malfunction last month that sidelined Boeing’s new flagship jet.
Bret Jensen, a spokesman for Boeing, responded that the 787 was
subject to greater scrutiny from the FAA than any previous jetliner.
“We are confident in the regulatory process that has been applied to
the 787 since its design inception and we are confident in the safety
and quality built into our products,” he said.
Critics say the FAA’s heavy reliance on manufacturers to attest to
the safety of their own products has largely relegated the agency to an
administrative role — and has left it without the expertise and manpower
to adequately challenge and revise safety standards.
For example, the FAA allowed Boeing more than
three dozen deviations from
existing safety requirements for the composite-frame 787. Called
Equivalent Levels of Safety, they were Boeing’s alternative proposals
for complying with regulations concerning fuel-tank flammability,
auxiliary power unit installation and other design and operational
matters.
The FAA issued so many exceptions for the 787 that it “represents an
aircraft that sort of meets the regulations,” contends Michael Dreikorn,
principal partner at ASD Experts, an aviation consulting firm in
Bokeelia, Fla.
Dreikorn, a former FAA official who was vice president of quality and
regulatory compliance for jet-engine maker Pratt & Whitney,
believes the FAA should have applied more of its own expertise and
direct oversight to the 787’s many new technologies. Dreikorn has been a
paid expert in a whistle-blower lawsuit filed by Boeing employees in
Wichita, Kan., claiming manufacturing defects in some 737-Next
Generation planes.
One question now is whether FAA engineers adequately gauged the risks
posed by the 787 battery, which the agency called a novel technology.
The FAA approved its use in 2007 — four years after Boeing first applied
to build the jet — but attached nine conditions to reduce potential
hazards.
Lithium-ion batteries are well known for being much more flammable
than older nickel-cadmium batteries, with fires that are all but
impossible to extinguish until a battery’s solvent-based liquid
electrolytes burn out.
Among other things, the FAA required the battery design to prevent
the possibility of spreading, uncontrolled overheating. That danger,
known as thermal runaway, is exactly what occurred in
the first of two 787 incidents,
when a fire broke out aboard a Japan Airlines 787 after it landed in
Boston’s Logan Airport on Jan. 7. The National Transportation Safety
Board (NTSB) said the battery showed signs of short-circuit and thermal
runaway.
The FAA also had decreed that any battery malfunction not damage
surrounding electrical systems and equipment enough to cause a more
serious failure. Yet the Japanese plane sustained damage to the adjacent
electronics bay, although the NTSB has yet to determine whether the
battery — located beneath the cabin in the plane’s rear and accessible
only from the outside — could have disabled critical flight controls had
the fire occurred in midair.
Mary Schiavo, former inspector general for the Transportation
Department, said the FAA’s extra safeguards for the battery instead
turned out to be a blueprint for malfunctions.
“This regulation predicted that this would happen,” Schiavo said.
She questioned the FAA’s decision to “contain a failure, not
eliminate it.” She contends the agency perhaps should have pushed Boeing
harder to consider alternatives to lithium-ion technology.
According to the FAA, Boeing’s battery tests were observed by both
company employees and agency staff. Some of the Boeing employees were
acting as representatives of the FAA because Boeing has what’s called an
Organization Designation Authorization (ODA) to act as proxy on
certification oversight.
From the early days of commercial aviation, the FAA has relied on
third-party observers to ensure aircraft were designed, engineered and
produced according to regulation. But partly in response to complaints
about a slow and inefficient certification journey, the FAA has shifted
even further away from detailed product oversight to focusing on overall
systems safety.
The creation of the ODA system was one big change. Under it, Boeing
became an FAA designee with wide latitude in picking the company’s own
engineers to sign off on their employer’s work on behalf of the FAA.
Previously, engineers in that role were approved by and reported
directly to the FAA.
Bart Crotty, an aviation-safety consultant in Springfield, Va., said
the FAA lacks the technical firepower to directly inspect every stage of
getting a new aircraft in the air. So it’s left to the manufacturers’
employee engineering delegates to review the design, plan and observe
tests, and certify they meet applicable standards.
FAA staff will attend many critical tests involving safety issues —
such as flammability of new materials and design of flight controls —
especially before the initial “type certificate” is issued for a new
jet model. If they witness something questionable, FAA employees can
refuse to sign off on a certificate, Crotty said.
But for the most part, the FAA’s role is largely administrative, such
as overseeing data recording. In fact, FAA employees don’t conduct any
hands-on inspections because of liability risks, said Crotty, who is a
former industry designated airworthiness representative.
And once the manufacturer receives a production certificate greenlighting assembly, “the FAA becomes a ghost,” he said.
Boeing’s Jensen said ODA is not tantamount to self-certification.
Instead, he said, Boeing’s authority extends only to “routine compliance
activity where we have the expertise and have demonstrated the
capability,” with the FAA retaining ultimate authority.
Jensen said Boeing is not disclosing how many battery tests it ran or other details.
Dreikorn, the former FAA official, doesn’t believe the FAA ought to
subsidize private research by conducting separate tests. Still, he
contends the FAA wasn’t quick or rigorous enough in anticipating
troubles with the new lithium-ion technology.
The FAA’s conditional approval for the 787 battery came a year after a
three-alarm fire in Tucson, Ariz., in 2006 leveled a building where the
company that makes the battery’s charging-control system was working
with a prototype.
In an incident in 2011, a new Cessna Citation business jet caught
fire at that company’s plant in Wichita, Kan., while its lithium-ion
battery was being recharged. Cessna quickly decided to swap out the
battery with nickel-cadmium versions that are less prone to ignite. That
did not prompt the FAA to revise its special conditions on the 787
battery. According to the FAA, the design of Cessna’s lithium-ion
battery was different from Boeing’s. Besides, the FAA said, the Cessna
fire was caused by a mechanic who bypassed safety controls.
Dreikorn said that wasn’t good enough.
“The FAA should have cast a very large shadow over the (787) design
and certification processes. But, without the right expertise, the
shadow does little good,” he said.
If Boeing turns out to have made technical mistakes or followed
regulations with less than absolute diligence, he said, “the FAA allowed
them to do it.”
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