波音和FAA因737 Max喷气式飞机被安全专家谴责

波音和FAA因737 Max喷气式飞机被安全专家谴责

A new report from a group of international aviation safety experts sharply criticizes both Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration for the way the 737 Max airplane was developed and certified to fly.

国际航空安全专家小组的一份新报告严厉批评了波音公司和美国联邦航空局研制和认证波音737 Max飞机的方式。

All 737 Max jets around the world remain grounded and under orders to not fly passengers following crashes in Indonesia last October and Ethiopia in March that together killed 346 people.

去年10月印尼和今年3月埃塞俄比亚分别发生空难，造成346人死亡。此后，全球所有737 Max飞机仍在停飞，并被勒令不允许搭载乘客。

Investigators link both crashes to a new automated flight control system on the plane known as MCAS, repeatedly forced the planes into uncontrollable dives.

调查人员将这两起坠机事件与飞机上一种名为MCAS的新型自动飞行控制系统联系起来，该系统多次迫使飞机失控进行俯冲。

In its report, commissioned by the FAA, the Joint Authorities Technical Review panel finds that Boeing withheld critical details about MCAS from the FAA, saying MCAS "was not evaluated as a complete and integrated function in the certification documents that (Boeing) submitted to the FAA."

美国联邦航空局委托的联合技术审查小组在其报告中发现，波音公司对美国联邦航空局隐瞒了MCAS的关键细节，称“在(波音公司)提交给美国联邦航空局的认证文件中没有把MCAS当作一个完整的和综合的功能进行评估。

The panel finds that Boeing told the FAA the MCAS system existed in a broad framework, but the company did not fully explain what the MCAS systems would do nor how forcefully it would push the nose of the plane down.

该委员会发现，波音公司告诉联邦航空局MCAS系统存在于一个广泛的框架中，但该公司没有完全解释MCAS系统将做什么，也没有解释它将以多大的力度将飞机机头向下推。

The FAA appointed the JATR in April to independently evaluate the design and certification processes for the 737 Max. The group includes technical experts from the FAA and NASA, as well as representatives from the civil aviation authorities in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, Japan, Indonesia, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.

美国联邦航空局在4月任命JATR独立评估737 Max的设计和认证过程。该小组包括来自美国联邦航空局和美国国家航空航天局的技术专家，以及来自澳大利亚、巴西、加拿大、中国、欧盟、日本、印度尼西亚、新加坡和阿拉伯联合酋长国的民航当局代表。

Former National Transportation Safety Board chairman Christopher Hart headed up the review, and in a conference call with reporters Friday afternoon, he said that as the MAX was being reviewed for FAA certification, MCAS changed "from a relatively benign system to a not-so-benign system."

国家运输安全委员会前主席克里斯托弗·哈特领导审查,并在周五下午的电话会议上对记者说,在对MAX进行美国联邦航空局认证审核时，MCAS从“一个相对良性的系统变成了一个不那么良性的系统。”

Hart says the review did not find any evidence of a deliberate effort by Boeing to mislead regulators; instead, he blamed poor communication.

哈特说，审查没有发现波音公司故意误导监管机构的任何证据；相反，他归咎于沟通不畅。

"The information and discussions about MCAS were so fragmented and were delivered to disconnected groups," the JATR report says, so it it "was difficult (for the FAA) to recognize implications of this system."

JATR的报告说:“关于MCAS的信息和讨论是如此分散，而且传递给了不相关的组织，因此很难认识到这个系统的影响。”

The report goes on to criticize the FAA for lacking sufficient personnel with the expertise needed to fully evaluate such complex systems. An FAA program designates some oversight functions in the certification process to employees of the manufacturer, but the report is calling for significant changes in that program as the review finds that the employees charged with doing significant parts of the certification work faced "undue pressure" from management to remain on schedule and keep costs down.

该报告接着批评美国联邦航空局缺乏足够的具有充分评估这种复杂系统所需专业知识的人员。美国联邦航空局计划将认证过程中的一些监督职能指定给制造商的员工，但报告呼吁对该计划进行重大修改，因为审查发现，负责执行大部分认证工作的员工面临来自管理层的“不必要的压力”，要求他们遵守计划并降低成本。

"This is not just an airplane problem,” adding that the FAA and regulators around the world need to better recognize "this new reality of super-complex automation and pilots not necessarily understanding how to operate it."

哈特在电话会议上说:“这不仅是飞机的问题。”他还说，美国联邦航空管理局和世界各地的监管机构需要更好地认识到“这种超级复杂自动化的新现实，飞行员不一定知道如何操作它。”

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