Report Finds Gaps in FAA Risk Assessment After 737 Max Problems

The National Academy of Sciences gave the agency more than a dozen recommendations.

Michael Wildes

Thursday, June 23, 2022 at 04:07 PM ET

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The FAA certified the 737 Max in 2017. [Courtesy: Boeing]

Key Takeaways:

A National Academy of Sciences report, ordered after the Boeing 737 Max accidents, identified significant gaps in the FAA's Transport Airplane Risk Assessment Methodology (TARAM).
The report highlighted TARAM's lack of public visibility, limited national guidance, poor synergy among personnel, absence of formal training, and a severe shortage of subject-matter experts within the FAA.
The NAS provided 13 recommendations to improve the FAA's risk assessment process, which House Committee Chair Peter DeFazio urged the agency to implement without delay to enhance passenger safety.

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After two Boeing 737 Max accidents in five months killed 346 people sent shockwaves through the aviation industry, a U.S. Congress-ordered report by the National Academy of Sciences released Wednesday gives the FAA a series of wide-ranging recommendations for its certification process.

Gaps in the FAA Risk Assessment Process

There were thirteen recommendations overall, with timelines of 6 to 18 months, that the Academy suggested the FAA should implement. Tellingly, the report noted the FAA’s process of calculating the risk associated with continued operational safety issues in the U.S. transport airplane fleet—known as the Transport Airplane Risk Assessment Methodology (TARAM)—lacked the appropriate public visibility because “national guidance for TARAM is currently contained only in one published document—the TARAM Handbook.”