The Air Line Pilots Association applauded the legislation, saying that it included much-needed changes to the certification process. certification procedures and requiring an expert panel to review Boeing’s safety culture. On Tuesday, the House passed a bipartisan bill aimed at changing F.A.A. The House committee also faulted the agency’s practice of outsourcing some certification functions to employees of the companies it oversees. by playing down the complexity of MCAS, perhaps to avoid costly pilot training. That report and one from the Transportation Department’s inspector general accused Boeing of misleading the F.A.A. In a September report, Democrats on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee said internal Boeing documents showed that concerns raised by employees about MCAS had been dismissed or insufficiently addressed. In both crashes, faulty sensors activated the software, sending the planes toward the ground as the pilots struggled to pull them back up. MCAS - for maneuvering characteristics augmentation system - was programmed to counter that. The placement of larger, more efficient engines caused the Max to tilt up during certain maneuvers. But it also resulted in a patchwork design that sometimes required workarounds. That strategy had benefits, including reducing the need for pilot retraining.
Still, the company has more than 4,200 orders in its backlog, most of them for the Max.įor decades, Boeing had taken an incremental approach to the 737, choosing to update the plane rather than conceive a new model. Aircraft contracts typically allow buyers to cancel or renegotiate terms if deliveries are delayed, adding to the urgency for Boeing to resume delivering the planes. The company has lost more than 1,000 orders this year, mostly for the Max, after accounting for orders that either were canceled or are likely to fall through.
decision removes some uncertainty as Boeing seeks to rehabilitate its reputation, resume fulfilling longstanding orders for the Max and manage the sharp slowdown in business caused by the pandemic. The Air Line Pilots Association, which represents nearly 60,000 pilots in North America, including those at United and Delta, said that it was still reviewing changes to training procedures, but that the proposed engineering fixes “are sound and will be an effective component that leads to the safe return to service.” United Airlines said it expected to start flying the Max in the first quarter of next year after 1,000 hours of work on every plane and “meticulous technical analysis.” Southwest Airlines said it did not expect to resume flights until the second quarter. 4 for flights connecting Miami with La Guardia Airport in New York. carrier to fly the Max, with plans to use the plane from Dec. airline operating the Max, planes need to be updated, and airlines suffering from a huge decline in traffic during the pandemic may feel little urgency to act quickly.Īmerican Airlines is expected to be the first U.S. must still approve pilot training procedures for each U.S.
include updating MCAS to avoid erroneous activation, updating display software to alert pilots when data from sensors conflicts, rerouting some internal wiring and updating the flight manual.Įven in the United States, it could be months before the Max starts carrying passengers again.