The US air regulator on Wednesday said that it would not allow Boeing to expand 737 MAX production in the wake of a mid-air emergency on an Alaska Airlines jet, but the MAX 9 model involved could return to service after inspections.
The blowout of a cabin panel this month, a video of which went viral on the internet, led the aviation regulator to ground 171 737 MAX 9 jets and resulted in the cancellation of thousands of flights by US carriers Alaska Airlines, and United Airlines.
Read More: WATCH | Phones Sucked Out of Broken Window Mid-Air, Alaska Airlines Flight Makes Emergency Landing
“The Jan. 5 Boeing 737-9 MAX incident must never happen again. Accordingly, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is announcing additional actions to ensure every aircraft is safe. The FAA today informed Boeing it will not grant any production expansion of the MAX, including the 737-9 MAX,” the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Mike Whitaker said in a statement.
The FAA said the halt to expanding production of Boeing’s best-selling 737 MAX narrowbody family was needed to “ensure accountability and full compliance with required quality control procedures” by the planemaker. “We will not agree to any request from Boeing for an expansion in production or approve additional production lines for the 737 MAX until we are satisfied that the quality control issues uncovered during this process are resolved,” Whitaker said.
“This won’t be back to business as usual for Boeing. We will not agree to any request from Boeing for an expansion in production or approve additional production lines for the 737 MAX until we are satisfied that the quality control issues uncovered during this process are resolved,” he added. The MAX family includes the best-selling 737 MAX 8 which is Boeing’s main cash cow. Earlier in October, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun said the company planned to reach production of 38 MAX planes per month by the end of 2023. “We are keeping our suppliers hot according to the master schedule,” he said at the time.
Boeing’s latest 737 supplier master schedule, which sets the production pace for its supply chain, calls for production to rise to 42 jets per month in February, 47.2 in August, 52.5 by February 2025 and 57.7 in October 2025, according to Reuters. However, Boeing’s own production pace can lag the supplier master schedule. The FAA on Wednesday also laid out an inspection and maintenance process so the grounded MAX 9 planes could return to service.
“The exhaustive, enhanced review our team completed after several weeks of information gathering gives me and the FAA confidence to proceed to the inspection and maintenance phase,” Whitaker said. Alaska Airlines said it had received the inspection regime and planned to start sending planes back into service on Friday.
‘Seriousness’ of safety questions
On Wednesday, Boeing’s CEO acknowledged the “seriousness” of safety questions facing the company, as he arrived for Capitol Hill questioning about the Alaska Airlines incident. “We fly safe planes,” Boeing Chief Executive Dave Calhoun told reporters ahead of a private meeting at the Senate Commerce Committee. “I’m here today in the spirit of transparency to number one recognize the seriousness” of the issue, and to “answer all their questions because they have a lot of them,” he said.
US-based Seattle Times published Wednesday a detailed update on the probe, based on a whistleblower who said that the panel that blew off was removed for repair at Boeing’s Renton, Washington plant and reinstalled improperly. Moreover, the work on the door plug was not recorded properly in Boeing’s systems, which meant it wasn’t formally inspected before the plane was handed over to the customer, according to the Seattle Times report.
The latest 737 MAX incident was the first major in-flight safety issue on a Boeing plane since two fatal 737 MAX crashes — one in 2018 and one in 2019 — led to a nearly two-year grounding of the aircraft. In a separate incident, a Delta flight on a Boeing 757 scheduled to depart Atlanta on Saturday was canceled after losing a nose wheel while preparing for takeoff.
(With agency inputs)
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