Boeing, FAA Offer Differing MAX Timelines

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Airlines got mixed messages about the return to service of the Boeing 737 MAX last week. Early in the week, Boeing said it was predicting the plane wouldn’t be ready for passengers until at least June. On Thursday, FAA Administrator Steve Dickson huddled with the CEOs of the U.S. airlines affected by the grounding of the MAX and praised Boeing’s progress on the outstanding issues, telling them he thinks it might be ready before the middle of the year. “The agency is pleased with Boeing’s progress in recent weeks toward achieving key milestones,” the agency said in subsequent news release.

The crystal balling might all be moot if the FAA follows through on Boeing’s earlier recommendation that simulator training be required for MAX pilots. The recommendation sent airlines scrambling to find sim time on the handful of MAX-specific simulators scattered around the world. In North America, besides the eight sims owned by Boeing in Seattle, Air Canada has one and Southwest has reportedly added three. One of the selling points of the MAX was that sim training wouldn’t be necessary for pilots typed on the earlier generation of 737s so few airlines bought the expensive machines. CAE has said it’s building dozens of MAX simulators on spec in anticipation of the demand but crew training is expected to slow the return to service.

An earlier story incorrectly said Air Canada had the only airline-owned MAX simulator in North America. Since the grounding of the type, Southwest has purchased at least three according to a reader who contacted us to correct the story. Southwest has not responded to our request for confirmation.

Russ Niles
Russ Niles is Editor-in-Chief of AVweb. He has been a pilot for 30 years and joined AVweb 22 years ago. He and his wife Marni live in southern British Columbia where they also operate a small winery.

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7 COMMENTS

  1. Excuse me! Am I to suppose that the 737 MAX MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System) technical problems have been solved, and that all 357 grounded aircraft, and work in progress aircraft, will be allowed by the FAA to be in service by June 2020?

    Why, yes Raf. “The agency is pleased with Boeing’s progress in recent weeks toward achieving key milestones,”

    But, “The recommendation sent airlines scrambling to find sim time on the handful of MAX-specific simulators scattered around the world.”

    Sims and training programs are in the oven, Raf.

    The Administrator will flight test, right?

    Affirm, no sweat, slam dunk, lemme get back to you on this one, Raf.

    Okay!

    • The botched MCAS was the root cause of two accidents–recognizing that no accident has only one cause. The whole purpose of MCAS was to avoid specific sim training for the MAX. Now, MAX-specific training will be mandated, that purpose is moot. So, why is Boeing even keeping MCAS at all? Don’t keep trying to fix MCAS; scrap it!

      • Well, the ROOT cause was a failure of an AoA sensor, was it not? With an overly-empowered MCAS system reacting to bad data, and confused pilots wondering WTF their airplane was doing, and then doing not quite the right thing. A chain of events, TBS, but without a sensor failure, nobody would have known.

        • Thank you, yes AoA sensor which continues to have a high failure rate was the root problem, compounded by the overly-empowered MCAS system and a setup of Trim cutout switch whose function had changed and did not stop the MCAS trimming as expected. Boeing fixed the MCAS system in June of 2019, no one seems to be addressing the AoA issue, the rest developing training and paperwork to satisfying the now embarrassed FAA.

  2. I just had a brainwave. Allow the MAX to fly again on the condition that all Boeing executive travel must be done in them. Maybe the corporate culture will change if the bosses have some skin in the game.

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