Transport Committee on Nov. 24th, 2020

[Chris Moore]

Over the last 20 months, there's been a lot that we've had to uncover and unpack, travelling to the States and sitting through their congressional and Senate hearings and trying to understand and learn anything about the planes and the aviation system.

We've had to learn so much, and that's one of the biggest difficulties. We're also trying to grieve and live our lives and work and just survive. I'm going through so much from a physiological perspective. I'm not the same person at all that I was before the crash.

I want everybody here to know that when this happens to you.... As I said in a couple of interviews, my life is dead. I'm a totally different person.

This shouldn't have been just about let's hurry and get the Max up so we can enjoy our travels and have a reduced cost because this plane is supposed to save the travellers some money. The whole idea of what Boeing did here was basically to try to save as much money as possible. They were trying to save money because of fuel efficiency, but they also tried to skimp on safety. They hid a lot of information. They knew this plane could potentially have a catastrophic event. They knew that, yet they certified the plane.

The FAA did not understand all about the Max and the changes that were made to the MCAS, and then they sent it to Transport Canada. We know a lot about what happened in the States, but we know nothing, really, of what happened in Canada, and what our civil aviation group knew and didn't know. It was only on March 12 of last year that we found out there was a concern letter showing some knowledge of this system, and that Transport Canada had asked some questions of the FAA that went largely unanswered, but when they did provide a response, Transport Canada basically said they didn't agree with what they had stated.

Then why not ground the plane? There's a definition of airworthiness in the Canadian aviation regulations on making sure the plane is safe to fly, and there's no way this plane was safe to fly. The facts speak for themselves, especially after a first crash. They should have grounded it then.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Moore.

The five minutes are up, but I am going to allow Mr. Njoroge some time to speak as well.

Mr. Njoroge, the floor is yours.

[Paul Njoroge]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I spoke about my life being thrown into a chasm of hopelessness....

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Mr. Njoroge, did you want a moment?

[Paul Njoroge]

No.

The difficult thing in life is when you live in a world full of billions of people, but you just feel alone all the time.

I'm going to speak about the validation process. I'm looking at the debrief notes from the Canadian test pilots to Transport Canada. That was in November of 2016, way before this plane was even approved to fly.

The test pilots are talking about an issue with the anti-stall system. Boeing has never disclosed why this anti-stall system we're talking about, which is MCAS, was installed in that plane. They've never told us whether it was meant to prevent stalling. They've never told us whether it was to improve the handling capabilities of the plane. Basically, MCAS is the anti-stall system. They just need to accept that MCAS was installed in order to prevent stalling.

These pilots are speaking about that, and Transport Canada sees that as an issue. They write to the FAA. It's not known today whether there was any response from the FAA. You wonder why Transport Canada would go ahead to validate this plane and allow it to fly in Canada, given the issues and the concerns that the Canadian test pilots had.

Basically, that's why we are asking for an inquiry. We want to know what the exchanges are between the FAA and Transport Canada. What does the validation process look like and how do they define it?

I'll leave it at that.

Thanks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Njoroge.

Mr. El-Khoury, you have the floor.

[Fayçal El-Khoury, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank Mr. Njoroge and Mr. Moore for being with us today.

I don't know where to begin. I completely understand your pain. The loss of human life is the deepest loss a person can experience. As a husband and father of three daughters, I sympathize completely, Mr. Moore. I sympathize with you as well, Mr. Njoroge. I understand your pain, your suffering and your loneliness. It's difficult.

Nevertheless, you must not forget about yourself. All you can do is pray for their souls. My thoughts and prayers are with you, your families, your friends and your loved ones.

As parliamentarians, we have a difficult duty. We must work hard to answer your questions and to get to the truth. Why did this happen? Who was responsible? Could the accident have been prevented?

Mr. Njoroge, I realize that you lost two loved ones, including your wife. Mr. Moore, you lost your daughter. I don't know whether we will ever be able to uncover the truth, but I assure you that Transport Canada and the committee are working hard to do just that. Experts, investigators and this committee are making an earnest effort to find a clear answer, one that will satisfy you.

Whenever the committee meets and even when I go to bed at night, I think of you. It will take a bit of time, but our objective is to get to the bottom of the matter, to find the people responsible and to do the impossible so that an accident like this never happens again. You can put your faith in us. We will be there for you.

In your opening statements, you said that you knew what had happened in the U.S., but are you satisfied with the answers the U.S. provided to our experts in Canada?

Also, could you tell us exactly why you are calling for a private inquiry and what you hope it will achieve?

Thank you. I am eager to hear your answers.

[Paul Njoroge]

Mr. El-Khoury, to answer your first question, we are not satisfied with what has gone on in the U.S. I am not satisfied, because we still have this secret call between Boeing and the FAA. Boeing and the FAA have not provided sufficient data to the public in order to show us what they did between the first and second crash. We want to know what variables they looked at in order to allow the plane to continue to fly.

To answer your second question, we're looking for an inquiry here in Canada because we want to know what data the transport minister and Transport Canada relied on in coming up with the five-point memory aid. Why not just ground the plane?

We know that the TARAM report—that is a committee within the FAA—came up with the statistic, using heuristics, that eventually 15 more crashes would happen and about 3,000 people would die. Then why didn't the transport ministry in Canada, as well as the transport minister, demand that the plane be grounded here in Canada in order to protect the Canadian people?

Thank you.

[Fayçal El-Khoury, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Can Mr. Moore answer as well?

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, I don't hear him.

[Chris Moore]

Is that better?

[Fayçal El-Khoury, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Yes. I didn't hear you before. Can you repeat what you said, please?

[Chris Moore]

I agree with exactly what Paul stated. Peter DeFazio, chair of the transportation and infrastructure committee in Congress, did a fantastic job of uncovering a lot of issues, but there are still a lot of details we do not know anything about. For instance, there's the whole idea of issuing an airworthiness directive. I did my own calculation, and I figure they passed the threshold for issuing an airworthiness directive by a factor of 5,000. That is incomprehensible. You would think there would be something in the regulations stating that once you get to a certain threshold, you must at least consider grounding a plane. That's quite a large factor.

There are a number of things or facts we don't know—for instance, how these engineers had approved that plane. It almost sounds like there was one person who was behind the curtain, but there must have been a whole fleet of engineers reviewing this aircraft. I have to call the whole professional engineering association into question. Is there any group looking at that?

How a second crash could happen is beyond me. That's what I want to get down to. This doesn't usually happen. We think Transport Canada played a role in it. Even though perhaps they were hoodwinked initially, they could have at least prevented the second crash by flagging it and saying, “You know, there's a problem here.” There obviously was one.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Moore.

Mr. Barsalou-Duval, the floor is yours.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the two witnesses, Mr. Moore and Mr. Njoroge, for being with us today.

I cannot imagine how difficult it must be to mentally relive this tragedy, only months after it happened. The events in question occurred over a year ago, and here you are today, before the committee. Clearly, you are still grieving, and rightfully so. The process is all the more difficult when it is loved ones—children, spouses—whose lives were lost. Perhaps you never stop grieving.

Thank you again for being with us today. I hope that, with your help, we will be able to expand our knowledge of the situation involving the 737 MAX and find out what happened at Transport Canada. We need to know what role the federal government played in this tragedy and whether it bears any of the responsibility. When safety is involved and lives are at stake, it is essential that everyone take responsibility for the part they played.

I am troubled. You mentioned earlier that, soon after the first crash, the Minister of Transport said publicly that he would not hesitate to board a 737 MAX 8. When Mr. Garneau and senior officials appeared before the committee, we asked them whether they had confidence in the FAA's certification process, and they all said that they had full confidence in the process.

I want to know whether you are equally as confident in the FAA's certification process. Do you believe the department compromised people's safety to make the Americans happy?

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Mr. Moore, go ahead.

[Chris Moore]

We, or at least I, don't have any faith in the FAA. It seems they are cheerleaders for Boeing. That's what it sounds like. They have praised the Max, stating that it's the safest plane ever. This is after they've done the fix. There is no way it will ever be as safe as its predecessor variant, the NG, because of this eccentricity that's built into the plane. There are a lot more issues here that will complicate the flight of that plane.

We do not have any trust or faith in their process either. In 2005 they changed the process to allow Boeing—I should say the manufacturer—a lot more liberties in certifying the plane, and in this case the FAA basically handed over 90% of the certification plans to Boeing in the end to certify that plane, which raises another question: What other things are left on that plane that we don't know about? What has been certified by Boeing that Transport Canada has no idea about?

I have a lot of questions and skepticism about the American process of certification.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Moore.

Go ahead, Mr. Barsalou-Duval.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Thank you.

The situation you described was brought to the committee's attention. I am referring to the so-called self-certification process undertaken by Boeing and the FAA. It was practically Boeing that certified the aircraft. In light of those practices in other jurisdictions, we need to determine what our government's role is. Is it simply to rubber-stamp the aircraft certification even though control mechanisms may be defective?

We understand that, on the federal government's end, the certification, review and testing process was limited. When we asked officials whether they had detected any anomalies during the testing and certification process, they said no.

You referred to notes that had been provided by certain pilots. I'd like to hear more about those notes, because they don't seem to have been mentioned when senior officials met with the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you.

I'm going to go to Mr. Njoroge right now. I'll come back to Mr. Moore.

Mr. Njoroge, the floor is yours.

[Paul Njoroge]

I'm referring to the briefing notes by the test pilots. Those came out in March of this year. We were supposed to come and testify on March 24, but COVID hit and all this was postponed.

Those documents were made public by someone. It may be the media. That was something hidden by Transport Canada, basically. That is one of the reasons Chris spoke about our not having faith in the FAA or in Boeing. There is a clear case of regulatory capture there.

Canada is a gold standard of aviation regulation. What we want to see is that Transport Canada can make its own decisions. We want to make sure they don't rely on what the FAA and Boeing are doing.

With the 373 Max, we know there are issues other than just MCAS. There is a reason that MCAS was installed in that plane. The previous versions of the 373 did not have MCAS. It has been spoken about extensively by engineers and aviation experts that the plane has aerodynamic issues. If it cannot be re-engineered and if they cannot rectify the structural flaws, do you think the 737 Max is qualified to fly again? I don't think so.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Njoroge.

We're now going to move on to Mr. Bachrach.

Mr. Bachrach, you have six minutes.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to Mr. Moore and Mr. Njoroge for being with us today.

I've been a member of Parliament for only a very short time, and this is the most powerful thing that I've had a chance to witness in this job. I want to thank you for having the courage and the fortitude to be with us today to share your stories. My heart goes out to you. I don't know what else to say other than your persistence and diligence in pursuing answers is a gift to all Canadians who fly and whose families fly. I want to thank you for that.

I'm very compelled by your call for a public inquiry. I hope that's something we can join our voices in calling for.

I have a long list of questions that we've prepared. Many of them you've provided answers to already. I would like to hear from you about the path forward.

From previous testimony that this committee has heard, it seems like there are two main challenges that have arisen. One of them is the culture of self-regulation at Boeing and with the FAA, whereby you have Boeing employees essentially doing the work of the regulator and being paid by the company. That seems like the one challenge in the United States.

The challenge in Canada, it seems, is with the harmonization process, which is a process that our government sought as late as November 19, 2018, after the first crash. Our government sought to deepen that harmonization and, in fact, to reduce Canada's technical involvement in the certification process.

Can you talk a bit more about that and how you feel about.... We've heard from the minister that it seems like there's a step back being taken or he is stepping away from that commitment to that process. Could you speak a little more about whether we need to take an entirely different direction when it comes to certifying these aircraft?

[Chris Moore]

The IPA agreement was an agreement between Transport Canada and the FAA. If there was anything that did not warrant additional scrutiny, the other validating authority would essentially rubber-stamp that plan. Anything that had a high risk would have a lot more detailed scrutiny. Apparently the MCAS fell under that threshold, so it never had the proper scrutiny it deserved.

However, with regard to the additional plan—and I think it's the road map that you're referring to.—we definitely should be backing away from the additional articles on the agreement. I think we need to fully validate any product that's coming through. Validation is the act of checking or proving the validity or accuracy of something. If you don't know anything about part of what you're given to validate, how can you be validating it?

I think we really have to go back to the whole definition of what “validation” is and also what it means to be “airworthy”. It means to be safe. The plane has to be safe.

There are a lot of issues here. I think we need to go back and look at the whole process.

I don't know how I can expand on that any further.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I understand that the 730 Max has now been cleared to resume flights in the United States. When it comes to Canada's own process, what would you like to see happen? Obviously there's going to be tremendous pressure to put these planes back in the air.

You've talked about an independent public inquiry. How do you see the path forward for the minister and for Transport Canada?

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Mr. Njoroge, go ahead.