FAA poised to clear Boeing 737 Max to fly again
The Federal Aviation Administration is expected on Wednesday to clear Boeing’s 737 Max to fly again after grounding the jet for nearly two years due to a pair of crashes that killed 346 people.
Agency Administrator Steve Dickson said last week the FAA was in the final stages of reviewing changes to the Max that would make it safe to return to the skies.
“I will lift the grounding order only after our safety experts are satisfied that the aircraft meets certification standards,” he said in a statement.
The move would come after numerous congressional hearings on the crashes that led to criticism of the FAA for lax oversight and Boeing for rushing to implement a new software system that put profits over safety and ultimately led to the firing of its CEO.
Regulators around the world grounded the Max in March 2019, after the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines jet. That happened less than five months after another Max, flown by Indonesia’s Lion Air, plunged into the Java Sea. All passengers and crew members on both planes were killed.
Investigators focused on anti-stall software that Boeing had devised to counter the plane’s tendency to tilt nose-up because of the size and placement of the engines. That software pushed the nose down repeatedly on both planes that crashed, overcoming the pilots’ struggles to regain control. In each case, a single faulty sensor triggered the nose-down pitch.
Boeing’s redemption comes in the middle of a pandemic that has scared away passengers and decimated the aviation industry, limiting the company's ability to make a comeback. Air travel in the U.S. alone is down about 65% from a year ago.
Boeing sales of new planes have plunged because of the Max crisis and the coronavirus pandemic. Orders for more than 1,000 Max jets have been...
