Making Daily Headlines · Page 7
The Max 10 Clears Certification, Not the Need for Care
· New York time
Boeing has received FAA approval for the 737 Max 10 after years of delays. The largest model in the Max family had been expected to begin flying in 2020, but increased scrutiny and other safety issues delayed certification. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says the certification process should be faster. The development matters for commercial aviation, but the debate over speed requires careful terms. A shorter process is not automatically a better process, just as a longer one is not automatically proof that every step added value. The relevant assessment concerns what scrutiny accomplishes. Certification is an aviation decision, not a race in which the clock alone determines the winner. Passengers have a reasonable interest in competent oversight even if they never wish to become experts in how it works. The bureaucratic comedy is that aviation can move people through the sky faster than its paperwork moves through an approval system. That contrast is amusing only if the solution preserves the purpose of the paperwork. The practical task is to make review effective without treating safety as an inconvenient attachment. Nobody boarding an aircraft should need to wonder whether the most impressive acceleration occurred in the approval calendar rather than on the runway.
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