Transport Canada to reform certification after 737 MAX crash

Transport Canada, the Canadian transport authority, said that in the light of the Boeing 737 MAX lackluster certification, it planned to intensify the supervision of the relationship between regulators and aircraft manufacturers during aircraft certification processes. 

In a hearing with the Canadian parliament, the regulator was asked what would be done to avoid another situation like the certification of the Boeing 737 MAX, which later proved to be unsafe. 

In one of his answers, Transport Canada’s director of civil aviation Nicholas Robinson said the regulator would “have to look at the interaction that different authorities have with their manufacturers.” The comment seemed directed at the U.S. regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Boeing. From several reviews of the certification processes, emerged a deliberate withholding of information from the manufacturer and even suspicions of collusion with the authority.

Robinson also said that Transport Canada already carried more than 15,000 hours of review in the two years since the grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX. While Canada is close to completing the MAX recertification work, there is no definitive date for the task to be done.

In the future, the regulator intends to have greater involvement in the validation process and expects to keep the structure where “the state of design certifies the aircraft and the other leading authorities go ahead and validate the aircraft independently."

Following the decision of the FAA to unground the Boeing 737 MAX on November 18, 2020, Transport Canada warned there would be differences between its eventual approval and the FAA’s clearance, including additional procedures on the flight deck, during pre-flight and variation in pilot training.