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I'm going to guess the FAA is, like a bunch of other regulatory agencies, struggling to meet its obligations with the insufficient funds funneled into it.

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This article was linked on HN last fall I believe: http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/airplane-maintenance-... Basically the airlines are outsourcing maintenance to places like El Salvador, Mexico, and China. The FAA has very little capacity for providing the same level of oversight previously conducted in US-based maintenance facilities. Scary.

Yikes. Horrifying stuff. If you've ever read the book "Poorly Made in China" it's kind of frightening to imagine the same techniques being applied to airplane maintenance.

Not quite -- the FAA is a classic example of "regulatory capture". Originally they policed the airlines, but now they explicitly state their mission is to assist the business interests of the corps they're supposed to regulate.

I can't speak for other aspects of FAA oversight, but my limited experience with DO-178B (A process for certifying software for safety-critical applications) has been mostly positive. While the process is rather heavy (and restrictive, regarding development/certification methodology), the outcomes seem to be quite good.

Can you provide some examples of where the FAA is doing poorly due to regulatory capture in regard to safety?

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