Boeing allays fears as 737 MAX flies again
BOEING’S 737 MAX staged its first post-grounding flight with media on board on Wednesday, as carriers seek to demonstrate to passengers that the redesigned jet is safe after a 20-month ban.
In another display of confidence, European budget airline Ryanair was set to place a hefty order for up to 75 additional 737 MAX jets, industry sources said.
Wednesday’s American Airlines 737 MAX flight was a 45-minute hop from Dallas, Texas, to Tulsa, Oklahoma. It comes weeks before the first commercial passenger flight, and is part of a public relations effort to allay any concerns about the aircraft.
American is likely to be the first carrier to put passengers on Max jets, beginning December 29 with once-a-day round trips between New York and Miami.
Boeing’s best-selling jet was grounded in March 2019 after two crashes in five months killed a combined 346 people, marking the industry’s worst safety crisis in decades and undermining US aviation regulatory leadership.
Wednesday’s flight marked the first time anyone besides regulators and industry personnel flew on the MAX since the grounding, which ignited investigations focusing on software that overwhelmed pilots.
The mood on Wednesday’s flight was subdued. Some passengers mingled and chatted before landing, when applause broke out.
Reflecting the COVID-19 pandemic that has roiled commercial aviation, each of the roughly 90 journalists, flight attendants and other American Airlines employees on the flight wore face masks.
“The history of aviation is built around a chain of safety,” Captain Pete Gamble told passengers just before takeoff. “When the chain of safety breaks it’s up to those of us in the industry to mend it and bring it back.”
Last month, the US Federal Aviation Administration cleared the jet following design changes and new training.
Scrutiny of the plane has focused on a flight-control system called MCAS, which repeatedly pushed down the nose of the plane before both crashes. Boeing, which describes changes to the plane on its website, and the FAA say the system has been made less powerful and easier for pilots to override.
Boeing is bracing for intense publicity from even routine glitches by manning a 24-hour “situation room” to monitor every MAX flight globally, and has briefed some industry commentators on details on the return to service, industry sources said.
“We are continuing to work closely with global regulators and our customers to safely return the fleet to commercial service,” a Boeing spokesman said.
But crash victims’ family members have protested the return to service, saying it is premature before a final investigative report on the second crash in Ethiopia has been released.
“The promotional flight is arranged by the American Airlines marketing team simply because the company made the mistake of buying more MAX aircraft than almost any other airline,” said Michael Stumo, whose daughter died in the Ethiopian Airlines crash. “Passengers should avoid this aircraft because others are safer.”
With 24 MAX planes in its fleet, American Airlines has the second-largest number of planes, after Southwest Airlines with 34 MAX planes.
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