Boeings troubled 737 MAX is starting to return to service. Alan Dron looks at what this could mean for airlines, passengers and the aircrafts future?
Ready and waiting: Flydubai will be one company particularly keen to see the 737 MAX return to service. Picture: Flydubai.
On December 29, 2020, a Boeing 737 took off from Miami International Airport, landing three hours later at New York La Guardia with 87 passengers on board.
At any other time, such an event would arouse no interest. But this was the first commercial sector flown by the 737 MAX since its return to service was agreed by the US regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
After a 20-month worldwide grounding following two crashes in Indonesia (Lion Air) and Ethiopia (Ethiopian Airlines) that killed 346 people, the aircraft has been cleared to resume revenue flights.
However, some regulatory authorities have still to certify the aircraft as being fit to return to service. The UAE’s General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA), for example, said in mid January that it was “still evaluating the situation”.
The resumption of services will bring huge relief to Boeing, which saw its reputation take a significant knock as details emerged over problems with the MAX’s maneuvering characteristics augmentation system (MCAS) and the lengths to which some individuals in the company went to cover up its shortcomings.
The MCAS flight control law was designed to enhance the MAX’s pitch stability, so that it felt and flew like earlier members of the 737 family. However, a faulty angle of attack (AOA) sensor triggered erroneous inputs to the control system and put both Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines’ aircraft into dives from which their pilots were unable to pull out.
Boeing has now developed a software update for the MCAS to provide added protection if erroneous data is generated. One change has been the addition of a second AOA sensor, so no ‘single point of failure’ can jeopardise the…