• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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US aviation authority clears Boeing 737 Max to fly again

United in grief again (1)

The United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Wednesday cleared the way for Boeing’s 737 Max to resume flying, 20 months after it was grounded following two fatal crashes blamed on faulty software and a host of company and government failures.

The decision ends a devastating saga for Boeing, which had predicted billions of dollars losses stemming from the Max crisis even before the coronavirus pandemic dealt a ruinous blow to global aviation.

The agency’s chief, Stephen Dickson, signed an order on Wednesday formally lifting the grounding.

“The path that led us to this point was long and grueling, but we said from the start that we would take the time necessary to get this right,” he said in a video message. “I am 100 percent comfortable with my family flying on it.”

The Max was grounded worldwide in March 2019 when the FAA joined regulators in dozens of other countries in banning the plane after the crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia killed all 346 people on board.

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Investigators have attributed the crashes to a range of problems, including engineering flaws, mismanagement and a lack of federal oversight. At the root was software known as MCAS, which was designed to automatically push the plane’s nose down in certain situations and has been blamed for both crashes.

In August, the FAA determined that a series of proposals by Boeing — including changes to MCAS, flight crew training and the jet’s design — “effectively mitigate” its safety concerns.

Dickson, a former Delta Air Lines pilot, took the controls on a test flight in September, saying he liked what he saw.

In a news conference on Tuesday in anticipation of the FAA announcement, relatives of victims on the second plane that crashed, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, questioned whether Boeing had done enough to address safety concerns with the plane.

“Aviation should not be a trial-and-error process; it should be about safety,” said Naoise Ryan, whose husband, Mick, was aboard that flight on March 10, 2019. “If safety is not prioritized, then these companies should not be in business.”