Boeing 737-MAX Recertification Could Come by October 2020
Joe Cortez July 21, 2020
The Federal Aviation Administration says they are preparing to issue a new airworthiness directive for the troubled Boeing 737-MAX, three weeks after the agency completed flight tests with the manufacturer. While the public will have their chance to be heard, insiders suggest the aircraft could start flying passengers again by October 2020.
After completing test flights at the beginning of July 2020, the Federal Aviation Administration says they are close to re-certifying the Boeing 737-MAX. In a public statement, the agency announced they will issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and an Airworthiness Directive “in the near future.”
Could the Boeing 737-MAX Fly Again in October?
According to the FAA statement, the new orders and potential re-certification follows “…proposed design changes and crew procedures to mitigate the safety issues identified during the investigations that followed the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines accidents.” Once they are finalized, the public will be allowed to comment on the proposed rulemaking for 45 days after publishing.
If everything moves as scheduled, insiders suggest that the aircraft could be allowed for consumer operations as soon as October 2020. Anonymous sources speaking to Reuters say they do not expect the aircraft to get ungrounded “before sometime in October.” Boeing has previously stated that they want to restart 737-MAX deliveries to airlines by the end of September 2020, if they receive regulatory approval from the FAA.
The news about the 737-MAX follows demands from the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure to release a 2019 survey regarding the agency’s safety culture. In the letter, committee chairman Peter A. DeFazio (D-OR) and chairman of the House Subcommittee on Aviation Rick Larsen (D-WA) want to learn more about the Organization Designation Authorization program, which allows airframe manufacturers to self-regulate on certain safety measures.
“We understand that the FAA recently completed its ‘2019 AVS Safety culture survey’ and that it intends to utilize the results of this survey to ‘more effectively implement a new voluntary safety reporting program for AVS employees,” the letter reads. “These are positive steps. But the results must be thoroughly analyzed and properly implemented.”
Why The 737-MAX Remains Divisive
Although the FAA provided several additional steps before re-certification is completed, flyers are still divided on whether or not it should be allowed to fly. Much of the criticism comes from a recent report by the U.S. Department of Transportation Office of the Inspector General, noting the timeline of safety certification failures before the aircraft was approved.
A U.S. Senate committee hearing in June 2020 added additional concern, after FAA administrator Stephen Dickson was accused of “stonewalling” the committee’s investigation. At the same hearing, a father of a victim of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 accused the FAA of enabling Boeing of allowing “profit and timeline pressures can overwhelm the safety culture.”
In their statement, the FAA said: “The FAA will not speculate when the work will be completed. The agency continues to follow a deliberate process and will take the time it needs to thoroughly review Boeing’s work. We will lift the grounding order only after FAA safety experts are satisfied that the aircraft meets certification standards.”
I'm not getting on this plane. It's dangerous: greedy Corporates murdered a lot pf people for a quick buck. If it's Boeing (737 Max), I'm not going!
Hopefully all of the required work that should have been done by Boeing initially will be completed by October 2020. In addition, the aircraft should be thoroughly inspected by various safety regulators around the world in order to help restore public confidence in the 737MAX series aircraft. I had the pleasure to fly it a few times before it was globally withdrawn from use, and it is a very nice aircraft overall! It most certainly isn't junk like some may want to believe. Numerous newly introduced Airbus jets and the C series (A220) aircraft have quite a few issues too, the later in particular (the A220) with its inflight engine shutdowns and numerous other technical problems. That is the plane I'll certainly avoid for a while, not the 737MAX. Every manufacturer makes faulty products after all.
What JonMST and others fail to mention is that AB in fact did exactly the same thing with the engine mounts, as well as the 777 has the same basic configuration. The initial fault was making the warning system optional coupled with the arrogance of Boeing made for a disaster. I do submit that no US carriers had an issue flying more hours than any other airline world wide. Just saying. Should it fly again, sure with proper training and certification by the FAA. If there was a time to bring this back is now with slow schedules allowing time in the air. Conversely lets say the above posters are correct, lets ground the Max permanently never to fly again, bankrupt Boeing most likely the buyer in BK will be China and away we go with thousands of jobs. Not saying Boeing is too big to fail but if your correct JonMST lets petition Congress to shut it down.
Oh yay, another dismal narrowbody aircraft to avoid. The thing is and always will be a piece of junk, even if it's able to fly safely one day.
I agree with @4lpina and @ednumrich that I won't be flying this craft. Due to the change of the engine mounts it is reasonable to get a new type certification instead of using computers to try to cover up the design flaws. This airframe is dangerous.