Plane design, administrative flaw blamed for Boeing 737 crashes

A congressional investigation partly attributed Boeing 737 Max's design and development and the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) failure in the certification process and oversight of the planemaker to the two fatal crashes.

The nearly 250-page report described Boeing as having a "culture of concealment" or unwillingness to share technical details.

The report added that the regulatory system under the FAA was "fundamentally flawed" and that there was an overly close relationship between Boeing and the FAA, which compromised the process of safety certification.

US representatives said that the FAA was, in effect, in Boeing's pocket, adding that "at the behest of Boeing" FAA management "overruled" its own technical and safety experts.

The report also identified a series of faulty technical assumptions by Boeing's engineers, lack of transparency on the part of Boeing's management, and grossly insufficient oversight by the FAA.

The two crashes involving Boeing 737 Max occurred in Indonesia and Ethiopia in March 2019, which resulted in 346 deaths.