US regulators clear Boeing 737 MAX to fly again

WASHINGTON: US regulators on Wednesday cleared the Boeing 737 MAX to return to the skies, ending its 20-month grounding after two fatal crashes that plunged the company into crisis.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the approval followed ‘an unprecedented level of collaborative and independent reviews by aviation authorities around the world.’

In a video that accompanied the announcement, FAA Administrator Steve Dickson said he was ‘100 per cent comfortable’ with having his family fly in the jet. Dickson piloted test flights during the approval process.

The plane was grounded after two crashes that killed a total of 346 people in 2018 and 2019. Both Boeing and the FAA have come under fire in the wake of the crisis, with critics saying Boeing sacrificed safety for profit and that the FAA was too deferential to the private giant.

A principal cause of the two crashes was identified as a faulty flight handling system that was supposed to keep the plane from stalling as it ascended but instead forced the nose of the plane downward. The FAA required Boeing to upgrade this system to address the flaw.

Boeing applauded the FAA’s approval as an ‘important milestone’ in the company’s journey to restoring its reputation and said it would ‘never forget the lives lost in the two tragic accidents.’

Boeing, which replaced its chief executive and several other top executives in the wake of the crisis, has also been slammed by a downturn in commercial plane travel due to the coronavirus pandemic.

But family members who lost loved ones in the crashes blasted the decision, according to a statement from Clifford Law Offices, which is representing the families in litigation.

“The aggressive secrecy of the FAA means we cannot believe the Boeing 737 MAX is safe,” said Michael Stumo, whose daughter died in an Ethiopian Airlines crash of the plane in March 2019. The Ethiopia crash followed a calamitous Lion Air crash in Indonesia in October 2018.

“We were told the plane was safe when certified in March 2017 and again after the Lion Air crash in October 2018. ‘Just trust us’ does not work anymore.”

To win federal approval, Boeing made changes to the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), the anti-stall system that activated improperly in the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines flights.