Regulatory capture may be responsible for Boeing's recent problems

AMERICA’S AIRCRAFT-SAFETY regulator has been the industry’s gold standard since it was set up in the 1950s. When the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) called out an aeroplane as unsafe, counterparts around the world followed its lead. That changed after a Boeing 737 MAX jetliner crashed in Ethiopia on March 10th, killing all 157 on board, five months after the same model went down in Indonesia in apparently similar circumstances. The FAA grounded it only once all other big regulators around the world had done so.

A week on, analysis of the black box recovered in Ethiopia suggests “clear similarities” with the Indonesian accident, the country’s transport ministry said on March 17th. This raises questions about the FAA’s certification of the plane. On March 17th the Wall Street Journal reported that the Department of Justice had launched a probe into the MAX’s development. Two days later the transportation secretary began an audit of the aeroplane’s certification process.