56 THENEWYORKER, NOVEMBER 18, 2019
millions of Americans.” Ronald Rea-
gan, elected in 1980, mocked what he
considered to be overbearing regula-
tors: “The nine most terrifying words
in the English language are ‘I’m from
the government and I’m here to help.’”
Corporations portrayed tort lawyers as
ambulance chasers seeking to make a
buck through frivolous litigation.
By the early nineties, it was plain to
Nader that the government was fail-
ing to regulate air safety. In “Collision
Course,” a book that he co-wrote with
Wesley J. Smith, they warned, “It is an
unfortunate fact that government over-
sight and enforcement is so underfunded
and understaffed that regulators and
inspectors must rely upon the integrity
and good faith of those they regulate
to obey the rules.” They continued, “If
a company is determined to cut cor-
ners, there is every likelihood that it
will succeed, at least for a while.”
The book was published in 1993. A
decade later, Boeing lobbyists began
pushing for a wholesale shift in regu-
latory oversight. For years, the F.A.A.
had deployed “designated engineering
representatives,” who were based at man-
ufacturers and certified the safety of air-
craft under development. The D.E.R.s
were typically employed by manufac-
turers, but they were selected by and
reported to the F.A.A.
In 2005, embracing the deregula-
tory agenda promoted by the Bush
Administration and the Republicans
in Congress, the F.A.A. changed to a
model called Organization Designa-
tion Authorization. Manufacturers
would now select and supervise the
safety monitors. If the monitors saw
something amiss, they would raise the
issue with their managers rather than
with the F.A.A. By sparing manufac-
turers the necessity of awaiting word
from the F.A.A., proponents of the
change argued, the aviation industrycould save twenty-five billion dollars
in the next decade.
At a meeting on the new process,
Sorscher said, “This is just designed for
undue influence,” he recalled. “‘ No, no,
no,’ they said. ‘This will work.’ ‘How
will this work?’ I said. ‘We have good
people,’ they said. I said, ‘Good people
in a bad system is still a bad system.’”
Marc Ronell, who began working in
the F.A.A.’s Boston office after the
change, told me that he raised concerns
with his manager, saying, “We’re paid
by taxpayers to protect the public. If
we’re not protecting the public, who is?”
The response, he said, was: “It’s really
Congress’s responsibility. Our job is to
serve the customer”—the company.
Ronell, who has a Ph.D. in computer
science and engineering, was also dis-
concerted by many F.A.A. engineers’
inexperience in vetting flight-control
software. To train engineers lacking
a computer-science background, the
F.A.A. sends them to a two-week ses-
sion in Oklahoma City. “You can’t sub-
stitute a two-week course for a four-
year degree,” Ronell said.
In 2009, the F.A.A. created the Boe-
ing Aviation Safety Oversight Office,
a forty-person bureau in Seattle dedi-
cated to serving Boeing, led by an em-
ployee named Ali Bahrami. Four years
later, Bahrami left the F.A.A. to take a
job with the Aerospace Industries As-
sociation, which lobbies for Boeing and
other manufacturers.
According to a veteran F.A.A. engi-
neer in Seattle, there has been constant
pressure from F.A.A. managers to del-
egate oversight of plane development
to Boeing. “The F.A.A. will tell you we
do risk-based resource targeting, that
we put our resources where there’s the
most risk,” he told me. “That’s not true.
The biggest focus is Boeing’s schedule.”O
n October 28, 2018, a 737 MAX 8
flown by Lion Air took off from
Bali, bound for Jakarta. Less than six
minutes into the flight, a cockpit alert
signalled an impending stall; the plane’s
software directed the flight controls to
point the nose downward. This adjust-
ment occurred three times in close suc-
cession, but, each time, the crew, which
included an off-duty pilot offering as-
sistance, managed to override it. The
flight made it safely to Jakarta.