Oh I dunno, maybe the government agency that used to do it before regulatory capture became overt?

The FAA can't wave a magic wand and declare a jet safe, and frankly they never have. Air safety is now and always has been the result of collaboration between the FAA, aircraft manufacturers, and pilots.

The bolts in that door plug weren't installed; it was a one-off due to some maintenance work. Do you propose the FAA systemically review every bolt in an airplane before they declare it airworthy? Every third bolt? Every third bolt of every third plane?

At what point do you just accept that fundamentally, nobody other than Boeing has the resources to check that a plane is safe?

The party to blame here is Boeing. The FAAs job is not to make sure they never step out of line, it's to correct them when they _do_ step out of line.

The FAA is doing their job just fine - I'll remind you, again, that even flying on the 737 MAX is quite safe and you still run a higher risk of death on the drive to the airport than on the plane.

I mean that's a pretty solid take if you elide the raft of engineers at Boeing that have raised any number of concerns over the last few years. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes and all that jazz...

There are always engineers raising concerns. The FAA is not funded to preemptively investigate companies with good safety records.

True, but perhaps it should be.