[broahmed]

Good. The FAA should have realized their insistence that the 737 Max was safe to fly despite evidence otherwise was likely to shake both confidence and respect for them as a regulatory body. It shouldn't have taken the intervention of the President for them to do their job.

Time for them to reap what they've sown.

[jacquesm]

> It shouldn't have taken the intervention of the President for them to do their job.

That's your takeaway of what happened?

My takeaway is that the president 'intervened' only after it was clear that the combined Boeing/FAA/US position became untenable after other regions local air authorities and airlines declared the plane unfit to fly.

Trump threw the FAA under the bus to make himself look good, but the weeks before he was pressuring them to keep the planes flying on behalf of Boeing.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/03/surprise-trump-kept-...

[nolok]

Agreed, they didn’t do it when the risk became clear, they didn’t do it after several big European countries banned it, they only changed their position once the ban was moved at the entire EU level. By that point they were getting their thunder stolen by the EASA and it felt protecting themselves was a much bigger motivation than protecting the passengers for who they actually work for.

[notimetorelax]

I wonder how much pressure airline companies put on FAA to ground the plane as I remember people getting very concerned about flying on that plane.

[magduf]

Yep, this is exactly the way it looked to me too. He was good buddies with the Boeing CEO and supporting them up until he reversed course and threw them under the bus.

I guess that's one good thing about having a narcissistic President who only cares about his own ego: he'll happily change course if it suits him and makes him look good, instead of digging his heels in.