House panel to probe Boeing this week

Boeing faces major technical and public relations problems as it prepares for this week's hearing of US House of Representatives subcommittee on the status of the 737 Max airliner.

Daniel Elwell, acting administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, or FAA, and Robert Sumwalt, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, are scheduled to testify Wednesday in before the House's Aviation Subcommittee of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

"Boeing continues to support the ongoing accident investigations and is committed to working closely with members of Congress, their staff and relevant officials," Peter Pedraza, a spokesman for Boeing in Chicago, said in a statement.

All Boeing Max jets were grounded worldwide following crashes March 10 in Ethiopia and October 29, 2018 in Indonesia. They killed a total of 346 passengers and crew. Preliminary investigations suggest the aircraft's Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, an automated anti-stall device, may have forced the noses of Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines flights down and into a fatal plunge when it erroneously determined the aircraft were about to stall.

Boeing has met with Southwest, American and United—the three US airlines that fly the 737 Max—and European carriers to discuss safety and software updates. The company has hired a public relations company and may run advertisements to promote the plane, The New York Times reported.

The pilot or co-pilot can turn off the Max 737's automated system by pressing a button on the center console. But some pilots in the US have said Boeing did not fully inform them about the system. A group of pilots developed an ad hoc manual explaining its use and circulated it among pilots who flew the jets.

Boeing's test pilots may not have known how quickly the automated anti-stall device would activate or how steeply it would point the nose of the plane down, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The Seattle Times reported that federal regulators delegated much of the plane's safety review to Boeing and that the company's analysis contained key flaws. James Hall, former chairman of the Safety Board, told China Daily that lack of rigorous federal oversight may have led to problems with MAX jets.

Boeing also faces lawsuits filed by families of those killed in the crashes alleging wrongful death, negligence and product liability. A federal court in Chicago is likely to delay action on the cases until the investigation is complete and the causes of the crashes are known, Robert Rabin, a law professor at Stanford University told China Daily. The US legal system tends to be more generous in awarding damages than any other in the world, Mark Dombroff, a Virginia attorney told China Daily. However, the judge could order the cases to be heard in the nations where relatives of the dead now reside.

The cases could be consolidated into a class-action lawsuit and heard in the US, or Boeing could reach out-of-court-settlements with family members of the victims.