Of the 737 max airplane at a hearing before the house transportation and infrastructure committee. Hes joined by boeing chief engineer john hamilton. This is just over two hours. Committee on transportation and infrastructure will come to order. I ask unanimous consent that the chair be authorized to declare recesses during todays hearing. Without objection, so ordered. I also consent that the chair and Ranking Member of the full committee be recognized for ten minutes each during the first round of questions without objection. So ordered. Before i begin i want to explain an administrative matter regarding some of the documents we may use in todays hearing and will be entered into the record. Ill be making two requests in reference to two document lists, a and b. We have been advised by the house generally counsel that the constitution provided authority for us to release these documents and the documents from boeing, boeings attorneys agreed to the release of these documents. I see nothing that is export sensitive in these documents. The faa stamped every document they sent us as export controlled. However, to prevent confusion with regards to documents with export control markings on them, i will be making unanimous consent requests regarding the release of these documents. Second, ill be names a unanimous consent request to enter the documents into the hearing record. This list includes the control documents on list b as well as additional documents. The Ranking Member staff is aware of all of these and has reviewed all of these documents that are on both lists. With that, i ask unanimous consent that the documents on list b, be disclosed mr. Chairman. Yes . I want to reserve my right to object at this point. The gentleman is recognized. Weve had two at least two, two that i can remember, hearings noting chinas infiltration of american industries, getting our and that includes rail, maritime, transit, you name it, and the 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 gone over this, making these documents these documents have all made available to everybody on the committee, making these documents available to the public are putting them out there in the Public Domain c i think is a real problem. And i think were cutting ourselves off at the legs when it comes to that technology. It concerns me. It concerns me in a big way. And i really want us to think about that moving forward. Having said that, i will withdraw my right to object and allow this to move forward because i do want answers. I think we can get the answers without these. I want to get the answers so ill remove that request. I thank the gentleman and i didnt take a backseat to anybody in the issues regarding china. I voted against most favored nation status and opposed them going into the wto. Ive raised concerns for decades about their theft of u. S. Technology and their unfair trade practices. So i certainly share the gentlemans concerns. I have reviewed these documents. I dont think theres anything in there that will be of any utility to the chinese. In any case, i recognize your concerns. I just have to finish reading this. With holding such information is contrary to the national interest. Without objection. So ordered. In addition i asked unanimous content to enter on the documents on list a into the hearing record. Without objection, so ordered. Lets proceed now to the hearing. I first want to recognize the families who are here today. Ive met twice with families. I dont know if ive met with all of you who are here today. And i want to convey my utmost condolences. One year and one day after the lion air crash. Very somber day. We shouldnt have had to be here. But we are. And were going to get to the bottom of this. And were going to fix it. And were going to see it never happens again. With that, i would thank the witnesses for being here. This fourth hearing the committee has held, first full Committee Committee hearing, i felt it best to do it in full committee. I know that boeing told us that they wanted to wait until the airplane was ungrounded, but i felt it was very important for them to testify before that happened. Were here today because 346 people, sons, daughters, fathers, mothers died on two max aircraft within a five month period. Something went drastically wrong. As you know, our committee has been acting in a robust investigation, but we have never undertaken an investigation of this magnitude. Its the second oldest committee in the United States congress. And we have received hundreds of thousands of pages of documents from boeing. They have been cooperative in providing those documents and agreeing that we could use those documents in the public hearing. And we have received tens of thousands of pages from the faa. We have conducted some hearings with faa employees. We have others we wish to interview. And we are have asked to interview boeing employees, but were told we have to be in line behind the justice department. 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, new and novel system, called mcas, took these two planes into an uncontrollable attitude after it repeatedly triggered, having to do with faulty or missing censer. It was wired to one sensor and in may, then acting administrative sat there and i asked him was it a Safety System and he said yes. And then how could it have been approved to trigger with a single point of failure . He had no answer to that. How could the faa approve it . How could the manufacturer do that . He had no good answer. That will be where we are going to continue to pursue the roots of this problem. We do know that one point of boeing had planned to informed pilots about mcas. It was in the first version of the flight manual when it was a relatively benign system. But when it became a radical system, which could trigger failure, it came out. It will be discussed again here today, quoting from boeings chief test pilot and his instant messages. We do know that boeing engineers actually proposed placing an mcas enunciator in the cockpit, but that came out in later versions are in the actual production version. And then it wasnt until after lion air that boeing informed anyone and still at that point i think soft peddling mcas that it was in the plane. Ive talked to a lot of pissed off pilots. They said we were the backup system. How can we be backup if we dont know something is going to take over our plane. Theres quite a bit of discontent out in the Aviation Community about that. You know, we now know that boeing and the faa assumed pilots would appropriately react in four seconds. Four seconds. But boeing had information, which well get to a little later in this hearing, that 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 happened twice. We now know from the very beginning the planes development, boeing was they had a phone call. The phone call was, hey, were going to buy airbus. They have better fuel economy and the pilots dont need restraining which is very expensive and disruptive. So boeing from day one had to meet that. Instead of a clean sheet airport, they got the 12th or 13th iteration of the 737 amended type engines. They had to develop a system to make it fly the same as others so it wouldnt have to go through Pilot Training or recertification. And that drove the whole process. We do know that boeing offered Southwest Airlines 1 million per plane rebate if the pilots had to be retrained. Imagine what the pressures were from the top on down, youre saying, what, no. No, no. Its costing us a million bucks a train. Maybe other contracts had the same provision. Slow things do. Then theres been a lack of candor all through this. Boeing learned that the aoa, angle of attack, disagree light, which was a standard featuring on all boeing 737s did not work on this plane unless someone bought the upgraded package. We were told that was an inadvertent software error. But that may be so. But boeing decided to delay the fix for three years until 2020. They didnt tell the faa. They didnt tell the customers and they didnt tell the pilots about this until after the lion air crash. Thats inexplicable. They say, well, its not necessary for safe operation of the max but keeping everybody in the dark and having that there it is, its there. Right in front of the pilot. Its not lighting up. Well, i cant light up. Even if there is disagreement. And it was included in the flight manual, unlike mcas. Wow. So you include something in the manual that doesnt work but something that is going to work and potentially cause c catastrophic issues was not in the manual. Boeing whistleblowers have contacted us regarding features force engineers wanted to get on the max but couldnt. We have from internal whistleblower a survey conducted in november 16 that 39 of boeing employees experienced undue pressure, 29 said they were concerned about consequences, consequences. You might lose your job, i guess, if they reported these incidents. We now know at least one case where boeing manager implored them to shut down the 737 max production line because of safety concerns several months before the first tragic lion air crash. Theres a lot we dont know. We dont know what would happen if a different path had been followed here. We dont know if these pilots had had simulator training. What would have happened. We dont know why boeing designed a play with a safety critical system side to a single point of failure inexcusable and unprecedented in the history of aviation production. We do know and we have seen that pressures from wall street, Market Forces have a way of making decisions in the worst way, jeopardizing employees on the factory lines and i hope thats not the story thats going to be written about this long admired company. We need today, we need answers, but we also know that we need reforms on how commercial aircraft are certified and how manufacturers, not just boeing are watched. Its not just about getting answers to your questions, but how to make the system safer and prevent future tragedies. With that, i yield time to the Ranking Member. Thank you, mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. I do want to extend my condolences to the families and friends of the accident victims. I cant imagine how hard it is to sit and go through this process. Im going to divert from my statement for just a minute and associate myself with a couple of comments that the chairman made and i too as a pilot having a piece of equipment in an airplane that i dont know about is something that concerns me in a big way. And that comment about pilots saying were the backup system, it does concern me. But i want to point out, though, as well, when it comes to airbus, because it was mentioned too that airbus, you know, there were customers that wanted to look at airbus as opposed to the boeing product, but the pilot is the backup system. You cant shut it off. Very similar system in an airbus thats in a boeing max mcas, you cant shut it off. It overrides the pilot. Overrides the pilot. Mcas can be shut off and thats one of the things about when it comes to being a pilot, you want to be able to shut a system off that has failed and basketbabe able to fly the airplane. Its my hope that m mr. Mullenbergs testimony is going to help us understand the decisions made regarding the design and certification of the 737 max. Some of those decisions were reviewed by the boeing company. On behalf of the faa. And while they were able to act on behalf of the faa, they retain the responsibility for overseeing the compliance with all safety regulations. It still lies within the faa. And i note the chairman said, we have a lot of other people to hear from and hopefully i do want to hear from were hearing from the boeing leadership today. At the time of these decisions, but i get a complete picture, i would like to hear from the faa official that is were there at the time, you know, between 2012, 2017 when these decisions were being made. And i hope i can get a commitment, and im sure you dont have any problem with that i commit we will be hearing from faa. We have to hear from everybody. Ive said before, many times, the various investigations, they reveal problems. If these investigations reveal problems with certification, then i think congress should act to fix those specific and identifiable problems. Thats going to be the issue is identifying what those problems are. In the aftermath of these accidents, we cant address safety of the Aviation System by focusing on one single factor. Ive heard Safety Experts refer to the swiss cheese model of accident causation. If you visualize them as slices of cheese with hole that is represent the weaknesses, some of those weaknesses are due to conditions, others are due to active failures. But when an accident occurs, when all of those holes line up, when they line up, thats when you have a catastrophic failure. And we have to consider all of those layers, all of them, when it comes to the protection and safety and, you know we try to determine what weaknesses are out there and try to figure out what those weaknesses are. As an investigator, if one of those nine contributing factors did not happen, the crash would not have happened. Its the focus of a number of investigations. And earlier this year, boeing took responsibility for the mcas design weaknesses and working on a software fix which were waiting to hear about that. But other weaknesses, boeing, with the faas oversight, were going to address they include pilot displays, operation manuals, today were going to hear about the status of all of those of those efforts. But i want to hear about how these efforts line up with the recommendations of the joint authorities technical review, or the jtar. By individuals with vast aviation and Technical Expertise is due out is obviously due soon. It did highlight some deficiencies in the relationship between boeing and the faa and we have to address those and i know we will. The faa, their concern the faa concurred with the jtars report and is committed to working on these recommendations which is good. We have to have oversight to make sure that that happens, but lastly, i want to hear about recently shared documents relate today boeings chief technical pilot. Other investigations are moving forward as well. Last month the National Transportation safety board, they issued a recommendation report which largely focused on the assumptions that were made during the design and certification process related to human factors. Design and certification cannot be the sole focus of our efforts. And ive said this before, thats only one layer of that cheese model i talked about. Other weaknesses that have appeared to have played a role in these accidents have surfaced. Reports called into question evidence that has been submitted which related to the testing of the faulty angle of attack sensor. Theres been whistleblower statements and other reports raising significant concerns with lion air maintenance programs. A whistleblower complaint was filed alleged significant problems with that airlines training. The air carrier went into the records of the 737 max a day after the accident and unfortunately operational pressures and lack of robust Safety Culture can negatively impact aviation safety. Thats another layer of that model that i talked about. The ntsb has confirmed operational factors are going to be the focus of its accident investigations. Along with its own max certification review, the department of transportation, at the request of the committees leadership, is going to begin a review of the International Training standards and the impact of automation which is another thing that ive talked about as a potential problem. But i want to be Crystal Clear in reviewing these areas that this is not an effort to blame the pilots and i dont blame the pilots and i dont absolve boeing of its responsibility. But a september New York Times article described the changing nature of the Airline Industry and the impact its having on airmanship. It refers to a transformation of the entire business of flies in which airplanes came so automated that a cheap air travel boom was able to take root around the world and this boom in air travel resulted in a need for more and more pilots. I remember getting letters from airlines all over the world simple m simplely because i had atp on my license. I will continue to repeat this. When the technology fails, pilots have to be able to fly the plane, not just fly the commuter. None of this is a reflection on lion air or ethiopians pilots. They were fighting for their lives. Its reflection on the broader pressures thats presently today in the economy and its incumbent for the airline whose name is on the side of that airplane to ensure their pilots are properly trained and not rushed into the cockpits. Thats where some of this blame lies. In ethiopia in particular. The government owns the airline and they put pilots in there that something above their head. Its not the pilots fault. You have to look at who put them in that position to be responsible for hundreds of lives. So in line with that swiss cheese model and other layers of protection, such as pilot actions, maintenance, training programs, they must also be explored and all of those weaknesses have to be addressed and i still believe that the faa remains the Gold Standard in aviation safety and once the agency certifies the fixes to the max, i will volunteer to be the very first person right alongside the administer in the very first flight of the max 8. In regard to the two accidents, i think all of those issues need to be addressed but only after we have had the benefit of various investigate works that have yet to be completed. Jumping to conclusions before that work is done only risks more harm than good. The u. S. Safety record speaks for itself and i will stand up to anybody who tries to question that. The faas proven system has made air travel the safest mode of transportation in history. With that, i appreciate the opportunity and i look forward to todays hearing and yield back anything i have left. I thank the gentleman. I would now turn to the chairman of the subcommittee, mr. Larson. Thank you. I will