THE SELF-REGULATION OF U.S. AIRCRAFT MANUFACTURING
A Flawed System – The FAA’s Delegation of Oversight to the Manufacturers Themselves
Is Gulfstream following the disastrous path of Boeing? Sadly, it appears so. To an extraordinary and troubling extent, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has delegated its statutory duty to enforce safe aircraft manufacturing standards to the manufacturers themselves. Counter-intuitively, the FAA permits a manufacturer’s own Organization Designation Authorization (ODA) program to determine whether its manufacturing processes meet federal standards. In a (vain) effort to address the inherent conflict of interest arising from such self-regulation, federal law mandates that a manufacturer’s ODA program strictly adhere to the procedures contained in its FAA-approved ODA Manual. Aircraft manufacturers are also legally obligated to protect their ODA program employees from any interference with their efforts to ensure compliance. The United States Congress is slowly beginning to recognize that the FAA has institutionalized the fox guarding the henhouse.
On February 6, 2024, the House Aviation Committee questioned FAA Administrator Michael Whittaker concerning the concept of the ODA program following the January 5th incident in which a cabin door plug blew out of a Boeing 737 Max 9 and fatal accidents involving 737 Max 8 aircraft occurring in 2018 and 2019.
Congressmen expressed their concern regarding the “inherent tension” between the “need to rush products to market … when you’re also your own regulator … doing your own internal reviews.” FAA Administrator Whittaker responded: “I certainly agree that … the current system is not working because it’s not delivering safe aircraft.” (Representative Allred/Administrator Whittaker at 1:57:24 – 2:00:57).
The grisly Boeing experience confirms the critical importance of a case currently pending before the United States Department of Labor’s Office of Administrative Law Judges – Wolters v. Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation, 2023-AIR-00007 – which raises similar issues.
Gulfstream’s Obligation to Refrain From Interference with its Engineers
Gulfstream employed Mr. Wolters as an Engineering Authorized Representative (EAR) within its ODA unit. Because ODA unit members perform the FAA oversight function for the very manufacturer which employees them, federal law mandates that, as an ODA Holder, Gulfstream must:
(a) Comply with the procedures contained in its approved procedures manual;
(b) Give ODA Unit members sufficient authority to perform the authorized functions; and
(c) Ensure that no conflicting non-ODA Unit duties or other interference affects the performance of authorized functions by ODA Unit members. 14 C.F.R. § 183.57 (a) – (c).
The FAA found that Wolters’ had raised objectively reasonable issues related to Gulfstream’s manufacturing process. Nevertheless, in the aftermath of this protected whistleblower activity, Gulfstream:
- First, reduced the amount of work offered to Mr. Wolters’ within its ODA operations,
- later revoked Mr. Wolters’ qualifications to work within the ODA unit, and
- on a continuing basis has denied Mr. Wolters’ subsequent applications for employment positions for which he was singularly qualified.
Worse still, Gulfstream never conducted the mandatory internal review process required under its ODA Manual until after these punitive actions were taken.
For those who are interested in Mr. Wolters’ protected whistleblowing activity and Gulfstream’s response, please continuing reading. I have linked the primary source documents cited herein.
Technical Background – The Vital Test of Preparing a Request for Conformity (RFC)
In an aircraft certification project, the design/manufacturing company must demonstrate that a product conforms to its approved design and complies with applicable regulations. As part of this process, the ODA, acting on the FAA’s behalf, must perform a “conformity inspection” to verify that a product conforms to its approved engineering design data. It is the Request for Conformity (RFC), completed on FAA Form 8120-10, that initiates the conformity inspection process.
Preparing an RFC involves identifying the technical data against which the product must be inspected, validating the data as appropriate, and formally identifying the data through the RFC so that the product can be inspected for conformity. It must be carefully drafted in order to elicit the necessary information to confirm that a product conforms with its approved design and complies with applicable regulations. As the FAA has acknowledged, the Gulfstream ODA Manual directs that it is the individual Engineering ARs who must identify the specific conformity requirements and the associated data. (Exhibit J at 2).
Commencing in February 2021 a dispute arose between Mr. Wolters and Gulfstream ODA Site Administrator Wayne Shade concerning the inclusion of poke home interface data on FAA Form 8120-10. (Exhibit J at 2-3; Exhibit K). The dispute concerned the documentation requirements for “poke-home” features in wiring harnesses in support of Electrical Wiring Interconnection System (EWIS) engineering compliance inspections and, more specifically, whether a proper EWIS compliance inspection required data from two different sources: (1) the 2D poke home data structured under the Approved LI model data and (2) data from the 3D harness assembly and installation. (Exhibit J). Due to the lack of a satisfactory response from Shade, Wolters filed a complaint through an FAA-approved Issue Resolution (IR) process. On August 10, 2022, the FAA found that Gulfstream’s practices “increase the possibility of non-standardization and increase the risk of non-compliance as stated by Mr. Wolters.” (Exhibit J at 3). Unfortunately, the FAA’s vindication of his position came too late for Mr. Wolters.
On August 25, 2021, Gulfstream ODA Site Administrator Wayne Shade initiated Gulfstream’s reduction of Mr. Wolters’ role within its ODA unit by condemning “his understanding of compliance, his judgement [sic], and his integrity.” (Exhibit P at 3).
Engineering AR Administrator Melody Jiran forwarded the angry Shade email to ODA Lead Administrator Glasscock and Director ODA Core Activities Brian Farmer. Significantly, the subject header for the correspondence was “EAR Attitude and Undue Pressure.” Nevertheless, the investigative procedures dictated by ODA Manual for matters related to alleged interference with an EAR were not followed with respect to the matter. Instead, Ms. Jiran suggested the responses of “counseling, suspension or termination” without any prior investigation of the bullying that Mr. Wolters had identified in his correspondence. (Exhibit P at 2).
There is no evidence that Gulfstream investigated Shade’s alleged interference with Wolters’ actions as an EAR be investigated until the FAA requested that such an investigation be conducted. Thus, the investigation that Gulfstream was required to conduct under its own ODA Manual commenced a full ten months after the interference had occurred. In the interim, Shade continued to denigrate Mr. Wolters’ determination to identify compliance concerns by referring to it as “Wolters is creating issues.” (Exhibit Q).
On August 27, 2021 – two days after Shade’s angry email condemning Wolters’ compliance perspective – in an internal email not shared with Mr. Wolters, Gulfstream determined that it would “completely phase out Greg Wolters from our teams’ activities.” The Gulfstream’s objective was to “begin to explore stopping activities for Mr. Wolters next week … and then eventually terminating his access into the Gulfstream systems by the close of next week as well.” (Exhibit R).
In view of Gulfstream’s punitive response, one must assume that its ODA program of self-regulation has been left in shambles. Gulfstream appears to be following in Boeing’s shameful footsteps.
We will continue to monitor the Wolters’ case to see if aircraft manufacturing can be put on a safer footing.
More to come on this case!
The more will be fascinating… or incriminating as the case may be. I was only able to share a snippet of what transpired with the exhibits as there were many that have “Confidential” written all over them. When this goes to trial I will be able to share everything with you. All the dirty little secrets of what goes on behind Gulfstream’s corporate doors.
Below is the warning from Honorable Judge Morris at the close of my trial as he scolded Delta, and I would think it would be applicable to Gulfstream as well:
“You all have to make a business decision if you want all this laundry out there. As far as the exhibits itself, if I noticed, I will note for the record I’ve got Confidential all over the place in these documents. These are public records. I am not going to seal this stuff, unless you’ve got some compelling reason. This is information that needs to get out there about how this process has done with these documents. So, you can ask, but this is a public hearing.” Judge Morris
Confidentiality be damned, this will be a public trial.
