Federal Reports

What We Looked AtThe Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is responsible for the safety and certification of all civilian aircraft manufactured and operated in the United States. However, two accidents in late 2018 and early 2019 involving Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft raised significant safety concerns about FAA's certification of this aircraft. On March 19, 2019, Secretary of Transportation Elaine L. Chao requested that we compile an objective and detailed factual history of the activities that resulted in the certification of the 737 MAX 8. We also received similar requests from the Chairmen of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and its Subcommittee on Aviation; the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies; and Senator Richard Blumenthal. They requested that we review aspects of FAA's approach to certifying the MAX series of aircraft, its reliance on the Organization Designation Authorization (ODA) program, and the Agency's actions following the two accidents. Our overall audit objective was to determine and evaluate FAA's process for certifying the Boeing 737 MAX series of aircraft.What We FoundIn this report, we provide a detailed timeline of the activities resulting in the certification of the 737 MAX 8, beginning in January 2012, when Boeing submitted its initial application for an Amended Type Certificate to FAA. This report also compiles a timeline of events following the October 29, 2018, crash of Lion Air Flight 610 up until the crash of Ethiopian Air Flight 302 on March 10, 2019. In addition, during the same time period as FAA's certification efforts, Boeing, FAA, and our office were identifying issues that--although not specific to the 737 MAX 8--may have impacted the original certification of the aircraft. As such, we also provided a timeline of concurrent related oversight actions and events related to FAA's ODA program.Our RecommendationsWe are not making recommendations in this report. The data gathered are informational and represent our observations in response to the Secretary's and other congressional requests. We will report further on FAA's oversight of the certification process and other related matters, as well as make recommendations as applicable, in future reports.

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On Friday, September 6, 2019—the day Hurricane Dorian made landfall in the United States as a Category 1 hurricane—the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued an unsigned statement (Statement) in response to a request by the White House then-acting Chief of Staff to the Office of the Secretary. The Statement rebuked the NOAA National Weather Service’s (NWS’s) Birmingham, Alabama, office (NWS Birmingham) for a September 1, 2019, tweet that advised that “Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian” after the White House then-acting Chief of Staff requested a “correction or an explanation or both” of this NWS Birmingham tweet. This raised the possibility of political interference in the Department’s and NOAA’s handling of events that began on September 1, 2019.<!--break-->There was significant internal and public backlash against the Statement, resulting in multiple complaints to OIG from the public as well as Congressional inquiries. Among the complaints was that the Statement violated NOAA’s Scientific Integrity Policy; NOAA has since conducted an inquiry to determine whether its Scientific Integrity Policy had been violated.<!--break-->This report presents our findings as a detailed chronology and analysis of (a) the events leading up to the Statement, (b) the issuance of the Statement, and (c) the aftermath of the Statement. Our objective was to examine the circumstances surrounding the Statement, providing an independent account of the events that transpired in the interest of transparency and good government. Our conclusions, in brief, are the following: (I) the Department led a flawed process that discounted NOAA participation; (II) the Department required NOAA to issue a Statement that did not further NOAA’s or NWS’s interests; (III) the Department failed to account for the public safety intent of the NWS Birmingham tweet and the distinction between physical science and social science messaging; and (IV) one NOAA employee deleted relevant text messages, and the Department’s federal records guidance is outdated.