Press Releases

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Ranking Member Sam Graves (R-MO) and Subcommittee on Aviation Ranking Member Garret Graves (R-LA) released the following joint statement regarding the Committee Democrats’ preliminary investigative findings of the Federal Aviation Administration’s aircraft certification process:

“We have said from the beginning that if there are problems with the FAA’s aircraft certification system, we should fix them.  Multiple non-partisan expert reviews have made recommendations on how to improve our system, and we look forward to working on those with Chairman DeFazio and Chairman Larsen in a bipartisan bill.  

“However, we believe the Committee should rely on the unbiased findings and conclusions of the many international aviation and safety experts who have conducted, and continue to conduct, thorough investigations into the two Boeing 737 MAX accidents.

“There are more than a dozen such investigations that have been completed or are still underway, including those conducted by the Joint Authorities Technical Review, the Special Committee, and the National Transportation Safety Board.  None of these expert reviews or investigations have come to the conclusion that our safety certification system is broken or in need of wholesale dismantlement.

“We recognize that next week is the anniversary of the Ethiopian Airlines tragedy, the official investigation for which is still ongoing.  While the Committee Majority’s preliminary report doesn’t appear to include anything new that hadn’t been previously found, we need to get this right rather than trying to meet an artificial timeline.  We must ensure that we fix the problems that need to be fixed to make our fundamentally safe system even safer.”