Amid mounting concerns about flight safety and calls for it to ground Boeing 737 MAX planes, the Federal Aviation Administration had a message for its workforce: Two employees were taking part in ballroom dancing competitions.
“Dancers are born,” read Tuesday’s headline for the FAA Daily Broadcast, an internal newsletter for the FAA which gathers important news items relevant to its employees.
The newsletter, which highlighted “Sleep Awareness Week” in its banner, reported: “Tena and Cecil Woods are engineers – industrial and electrical – but almost 60 years of combined experience working complex systems for the FAA was not enough to prepare them for the technical and mental requirements of competitive ballroom dancing.”
Conspicuously missing was any response to the continued calls for the FAA to ground Boeing 737 MAXs after two crashes in the last six months that led the European Union and Canada, along with other countries, to ground that model of 737s until an investigation into the cause of the latest crash could be completed. Some 36 hours after the newsletter was published, President Trump grounded all U.S. Boeing 737 MAXs.
Among other items the FAA judged more important than the Boeing furor were “Federal retirement Facts: A True-False Quiz,” “Snooze and Lose – Sleep can help you lose weight,” and “Forgot Your FAA Network Password?” The best-read stories from the newsletter were “Job/Detail Opportunities of the Week” and “The Windows 10 Operating System is Here.”
The newsletter made no acknowledgment of the crash until 22 headlines in and contained no statement about the FAA’s investigation or response to the incident. The links attached were to three stories that included no criticism of the FAA or mention of the calls for it to take action. One reported the basic facts of the crash, another said the FAA planned to investigate the latest crash, and another stated the FAA had called for Boeing to upgrade its safety software in its airplanes.
In October, a Lionel Air MAX 8 crashed in the sea off the shore of Indonesia, killing 189 people. On Sunday, an Ethiopian Airlines MAX 8 crashed, killing 157 people on board, prompting concern there might be a defect with that Boeing model.
Tena Woods, an FAA manager, and Cecil Woods, an FAA electrical engineer are active dancers in Oklahoma — though they compete with different partners. Tena Woods recently competed in the County Swing, Cha Cha, Rumba, Swing, Merengue, American Waltz, Foxtrot, and Tango categories. Cecil Woods competed in Country Two-Step, Cha Cha, Rumba, Swing, Salsa, Hustle, Tango, and American Waltz.
“We have posted updated information about this on Twitter and on the front page of the FAA website,” Ian Gregor, communications manager at the FAA Pacific Division, told the Washington Examiner when asked why the FAA did not highlight the Boeing 737. “Every news organization in the US is covering this.”
