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American Airlines flew a Boeing 737 Max with paying passengers from Miami to New York on Tuesday, the plane’s first commercial flight in U.S. skies since it was grounded after two fatal crashes.
American Flight 718 carried 87 passengers on the 172-seat plane, and the return flight from LaGuardia Airport to Miami International Airport had 151 passengers, according to an airline spokeswoman.
Last month, the Federal Aviation Administration approved changes Boeing made to an automated flight control system implicated in accidents in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed 346 people in total. In both crashes, the system repeatedly pushed the nose down based on faulty sensor readings, and the pilots were unable to regain control.
The FAA paved the way for US airlines to resume use of the plane if certain changes are made and pilots receive additional training, including time in a flight simulator.
Brazilian airlines Gol operated the first passenger flight with a renewed Max on December 9. Since then, Gol and Aeroméxico have operated about 600 flights between them with Max planes, according to the Flightradar24 tracking service and aviation data firm Cirium.
American plans to fly a day roundtrip between Miami and New York with Max planes through Jan. 4 before putting the plane on more routes. United Airlines plans to resume Max flights in February, and Southwest Airlines expects to continue in March. All three airlines say they will give customers the opportunity to change flights if they feel uncomfortable flying in the Max.
The Max was grounded around the world in March 2019, days after the second accident. Reports from House and Senate committees blamed Boeing and the FAA for flaws in the aircraft’s certification process. Congressional investigators uncovered internal Boeing documents in which company employees raised safety concerns and bragged about misleading regulators.
FAA Administrator Stephen Dickson, a former military and airline pilot, operated a test flight in September and vouched for the safety of the reworked plane, saying he would put his family on it. American Airlines President Robert Isom was on the inaugural US flight Tuesday, according to the airline.
Some relatives of people who died in the second crash, a Max operated by Ethiopian Airlines, say the plane is not yet safe. They and their attorneys say Boeing is refusing to release documents about the plane’s design and development.
“The truth is that 346 people are now dead because Boeing took shortcuts, lied to regulators and simply considers this to be the cost of doing business,” said Yalena López-Lewis, whose husband died in the accident, in a statement issued by your lawyers. . “It is outrageous that American Airlines is rewarding Boeing for the corrupt and catastrophic process that led to the Max.”
Zipporah Kuria, a British citizen whose father was also killed in the Ethiopia crash, noted the recent revelation in a Senate committee report that Boeing representatives trained FAA test pilots to review Boeing updates to the system. flight control Max. “Boeing’s leadership is still riddled with deception. Their priorities are not consumer safety, ”he said in an interview.
Boeing spokesman Bernard Choi said the company “learned many hard lessons” from the crashes and is committed to safety.
“We continue to work closely with global regulators and our customers to support the safe return of the fleet to service around the world,” said Choi.
The return of the plane to the US skies is a huge boost for Boeing, which has lost billions during the Max grounding because it has failed to deliver new planes to airline customers. Orders for the plane have plummeted. Boeing has removed more than 1,000 Max jets from its order book because airlines canceled orders or sales are uncertain due to the pandemic crisis affecting the travel industry.
This story was reported by The Associated Press.
