The nation’s aviation safety agency announced the move early Wednesday, saying it was done after a thorough and methodical 20-month review process.
Regulators around the world grounded the Max in March 2019, following the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines plane. That came less than five months after another Max flown by Indonesia’s Lion Air sank in the Java Sea. A total of 346 passengers and crew members of both planes died.
Airplanes won’t be back in the skies for a while. The FAA says it must approve pilot training changes for every American airline and airlines must perform required maintenance on planes.
The Federal Aviation Administration is expected to clear Boeing’s 737 Max on Wednesday to fly again after grounding it for nearly two years in a pair of crashes that killed 346 people.
The head of the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Steve Dickson, is “100% confident” in the safety of the Boeing 737 MAX, but says the aircraft manufacturer has more to do as it works to improve its culture of security.
Dickson signed an order Wednesday to allow the best-selling jet to resume flights after it was suspended worldwide in March 2019 after two accidents that killed 346 people and led to Boeing’s biggest crisis in decades.
The order will end the longest grounding in commercial aviation history and paves the way for Boeing to resume US commercial flights and deliveries by the end of the year.
“We have done everything humanly possible to ensure that” these types of crashes do not happen again, “FAA Administrator Dickson told Reuters in a 30-minute telephone interview, adding that the design changes” have eliminated what caused these particular accidents. “
The FAA requires re-training to deal with a key safety system called MCAS that is to blame for the two fatal crashes, as well as important new safeguards and other software changes.
“I feel 100% safe,” said Dickson, a former airline and military pilot, who assumed the FAA administration role in August 2019 and took control of a test flight of the 737 MAX in September.
In a video message posted Wednesday, he said the 20-month review was “long and exhausting, but we said from the beginning that we would take the time to get it right.”
Dickson said he emphasized to Boeing the importance of safety. “I understand they have a business to run, but they have nothing if they don’t have a safe product,” said Dickson.
Dickson suggested that Boeing has more to do to improve safety.
“They have taken some actions, but it will take more than implementing new processes and moving boxes around the organization chart. Cultural changes take a long time to take effect and we have to be skeptical,” he said.
Boeing said it is “committed to learning from our mistakes to build a safer future so accidents like this never happen again.”
The move would come after numerous congressional hearings on the accidents that led to criticism of the FAA for lax oversight and Boeing for rushing to implement a new software system that put profit over safety and ultimately led to to the dismissal of its CEO.
Regulators around the world grounded the Max in March 2019, following the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines plane. That came less than five months after another Max, flown by Indonesia’s Lion Air, sank in the Java Sea. All passengers and crew members on both planes were killed.
The researchers focused on anti-lock software that Boeing had designed to counteract the aircraft’s tendency to tilt upward due to the size and location of the engines. That software repeatedly pushed the nose down on both planes that crashed, overcoming the pilots’ struggles to regain control. In each case, a single faulty sensor triggered the nose-down passage.
Boeing’s redemption comes amid a pandemic that has spooked passengers and decimated the aviation industry, limiting the company’s ability to return. Air travel in the US alone is down 65% from the previous year.
Boeing’s new aircraft sales have plummeted due to the Max crisis and the coronavirus pandemic. Orders for more than 1,000 Max jets were canceled or removed from Boeing’s order book this year. Each plane has a tag price of between $ 99 million and $ 135 million, although airlines typically pay much less than the list price.
John Hansman, a professor of aeronautics at MIT, said that people typically avoid planes for a few months after problems arise. But Max’s case is unusual, and if it weren’t for the new coronavirus, Hansman said he would feel safe flying in a Max.
“All of this has come under more scrutiny than any aircraft in the world,” he said. “It’s probably the safest plane to be on.”
American is the only US airline to put the Max back on schedule so far, beginning with a daily round-trip between New York and Miami beginning December 29.
Nearly 400 Max jets were in service worldwide when they were grounded, and Boeing has built and stocked about 450 more since then. All must undergo maintenance and some modifications before they can fly.
Pilots must also undergo simulator training, which was not necessary when the aircraft was introduced. Hansman said pilot training for qualified 737 pilots shouldn’t take long because Boeing has fixed problems with the Max’s software. It no longer automatically points the nose of the plane down repeatedly and does not override the pilot’s commands, according to Boeing. The company published a summary of the changes to the plane.
Family members of those killed in the crashes remain unconvinced of the Max’s safety. They accused Boeing of hiding critical design features from the FAA and say the company tried to correct the tendency of the plane’s nose to tilt with software that was implicated in both crashes.
“The flying public should avoid the Max,” said Michael Stumo, whose 24-year-old daughter died in the second crash. “Change your flight. This is still a more dangerous aircraft than other modern aircraft.”
Boeing’s reputation has suffered since the accidents. Its then CEO Dennis Muilenburg initially suggested that foreign pilots were to blame. However, Congressional investigators uncovered an FAA analysis, conducted after Max’s first accident, which predicted there would be 15 more accidents over the life of the plane if the flight control software was not repaired.
After an 18-month investigation, the House Transportation Committee blamed Boeing, which was under pressure to develop the Max to compete with a plane from European rival Airbus, and the FAA, which certified the Max and was the last. world agency. to ground it after accidents. Investigators said Boeing suffered from a “stealth culture” and pressured engineers to put the plane on the market.
Boeing was repeatedly wrong about how quickly it could repair the plane. When those predictions remained incorrect and Boeing was perceived as putting undue pressure on the FAA, Muilenburg was fired in December 2019.
Dickson, who flew F-15 fighters in the Air Force before serving as a pilot and executive at Delta Air Lines, heralded the agency’s decision to authorize the Max to fly again with comments in September after he climbed into the cockpit. of a Max. for a two hour test flight.
“I liked what I saw on the flight,” said Dickson that day. Some relatives of the passengers who died in the accident in Ethiopia dismissed the Dickson flight as a stunt for the benefit of Boeing.
In recent weeks, European regulators also signaled their likely approval of Boeing’s work. Regulators in Canada and China are still conducting their own reviews. Family members say it is too early and they and their lawyers say Boeing and the FAA are withholding documents.
Naoise Ryan, an Irish national whose husband was killed in the Ethiopia crash, said the Max is “the same plane that crashed not once but twice because safety was not a priority for this company.”
Anton Sahadi, who lives in Jakarta, Indonesia, and lost two brothers in the Lion Air crash, said he feels it is too early for the Max to fly again.
“I personally feel very sorry for the decision to dismantle the Boeing 737 Max,” he said. “The cases of the incidents are not 100% finished yet. There are many of them still in process. I think all the victims” The family in Indonesia and Ethiopia will feel the same, so unfortunate, why can they fly again because we are still the process of recovering from our problems due to the incidents. “
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