Boeing "inappropriately influenced" a test designed to see how quickly pilots could respond to malfunctions on the company's 737 Max aircraft, United States Senate investigators say.
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In a report released on Friday, the Senate Commerce Committee also said the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) continues to retaliate against whistleblowers and may have obstructed a review of two deadly crashes involving the plane.
The report follows a similarly scathing review of the FAA by a House panel earlier this year. Both grew out of concern about the agency's approval of the Boeing Max.
In a statement, the FAA said the report "contains a number of unsubstantiated allegations" and defended its review of the Max, calling it thorough and deliberate.
"We are confident that the safety issues that played a role in the tragic accidents involving Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 have been addressed through the design changes required and independently approved by the FAA and its partners," the agency said.
Boeing did not comment on the specific allegations.
"We take seriously the Committee's findings and will continue to review the report in full," the Chicago-based company said.
Max planes were grounded worldwide after crashes in Indonesia in October 2018, and Ethiopia in March the following year killed 346 people.
Following a lengthy review, the FAA last month approved the plane to fly again if airlines update a key flight-control system and make other changes.
The Senate report, however, criticised a key part of the FAA review, saying Boeing "inappropriately influenced" FAA testing of pilot-reaction time to a nose-down pitch of the plane.
According to a whistleblower who was an FAA safety inspector, Boeing representatives watched and gave advice to help test pilots in a flight simulator respond to the problem in a few seconds.
The reaction of three flight crews was still slower than Boeing had assumed, according to the report.
In the two Max crashes, a failure of the key flight system, called MCAS, pushed the nose down repeatedly, sending the planes into fatal dives.
The FAA countered that it was an FAA pilot who discovered a separate computer issue in the plane, a flaw that took Boeing additional months to fix.
The committee chairman, Roger Wicker, R-Miss., called the investigators' findings troubling.
"The report details a number of significant examples of lapses in aviation safety oversight and failed leadership in the FAA," Wicker said in a statement.
"It is clear that the agency requires consistent oversight to ensure their work to protect the flying public is executed fully and correctly."
Australian Associated Press
