Overview

Ali Bahrami served as the Federal Aviation Administration's Associate Administrator for Aviation Safety from 2017 to 2021; the most senior safety official in U.S. civil aviation during the Boeing 737 MAX crisis that killed 346 people. Born in Iran; Bahrami emigrated to the United States and built a career at the FAA spanning over three decades. He rose through the agency's ranks during a period when the FAA increasingly delegated safety certification responsibilities to the manufacturers themselves through the Organization Designation Authorization (ODA) program. Under Bahrami's leadership; the FAA allowed Boeing to self-certify the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) on the 737 MAX; the system that would ultimately cause the crash of Lion Air Flight 610 on October 29; 2018 (killing all 189 aboard) and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on March 10; 2019 (killing all 157 aboard). Congressional investigations by the House Transportation Committee found that FAA managers under Bahrami's authority overruled their own safety engineers; deferred to Boeing's assessments; and failed to adequately review the MCAS system's reliance on a single angle-of-attack sensor. The DOT Inspector General's office found that FAA safety oversight had been systematically weakened by delegation policies that Bahrami championed. Internal FAA emails released during congressional hearings showed FAA engineers had flagged concerns about the MAX's certification; but these were dismissed at the management level. Bahrami had previously served as director of the FAA's Transport Airplane Directorate and had close working relationships with Boeing personnel; raising questions about regulatory capture. Before the MAX crashes; Bahrami had advocated for expanding the ODA program; giving manufacturers even more authority to certify their own aircraft. After the crashes; he defended the FAA's certification process before Congress. He retired from the FAA in 2021.

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Controversies & Concerns

Related Investigations (4)

Sources & Documentation

3 documented sources from official records, investigations, and reports