In an interview, Michael Stumo, whose daughter Samya Rose Stumo died on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, called Congress’ action “a total swamp move.”

He said Congress is “reducing safety with pure political power and enabling Boeing’s profits over safety, without hearings, without data, without scrutiny.”

In March, two technical experts critical of Boeing sent a proposal to the Senate Commerce Committee, chaired by Cantwell, for a crew alerting system upgrade they deemed acceptably safe at a likely cost of at least $1 billion to the jet maker. That proposal failed to gain support.

​​​​​​​While the crew-alerting system upgrade won’t be required, the language in the new bill includes a condition proposed earlier this month by U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell that will require all airlines to retrofit two specific safety enhancements.

Boeing developed those enhancements for the MAX 10. The bill requires them to be retrofitted to the MAX 7 and to the two earlier models already certified and in service, the MAX 8 and MAX 9 jets.

The amendment gives Boeing three years after the MAX 10 is certified to retrofit those safety enhancements to all models of the MAX, after which none can be operated without them.
The bill requires Boeing to bear the cost of the retrofits.