The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of the United States, last Wednesday, November 18, has again authorized the use of the Boeing 737-MAX, which since March 2019 and because of two accidents in which there were no survivors and due to technical flaws it was banned from circulation in several countries; such situation represented an affectation for the company and was aggravated by the aeronautical paralysis caused by the Covid-19.
Contents
The reason for the ban on the Boeing 737-MAX
There were two Boeing 737 MAX accidents that generated worldwide prohibitions due to the use of this model. The first accident was that of Lion Air in Indonesia in October 2018 when the aircraft crashed in the Java Sea thus causing the death of 189 people among passengers and crew members with no survivors.
The second incident happened less than five months later, on March 10, 2019, this time the plane was owned by Ethiopian Airlines, which crashed near the town of Bishoftu, killing the 157 people on board. This last accident was the one that caused both airlines and countries to ban the use of Boeings 737 MAX.
In some cases the ban was immediate, while countries such as Germany, Australia, and the United Kingdom banned the use of the 737 MAX on March 12, 2019 (two days after the second accident); a ban that was extended to all European flight space by the European Aviation Safety Agency which even forced the diversion of the 737 MAX in flight for an early landing. In other regions, it took until March 13 to take the same measure, as was the case in Canada.
The technical failure of claims
During the investigation, it was found that it was a technical production failure that generated an improper behavior in the safety systems designed to prevent a too fast ascent/descent. This generated precipitous descents that could not be controlled by the pilots and culminated in the above-mentioned accidents. We invite you to learn about another system that supports other systems on an aircraft in the article: What is the Pitot-Static system and how does it work?
The technical failure and accidents affected Boeing legally and financially. The Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA) filed a lawsuit against “The Boeing Company” for deliberately misleading the airline and its pilots. In addition, the compensation that The Boeing Company must pay to the victims’ families and the affected airlines is approximately $20 billion. If you want to know about devices for the collection of data from airplane accidents you can read: The black boxes, vital for the recreation of airplane accidents.
The recertification of the model
On November 18, 2020, the FAA has communicated its approval to use this model again with passengers. It took more than a year for Boeing to successfully complete the re-certification flight program, in which all types of tests were performed. However, rigorous monitoring of the behavior of the MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System), an automated flight control system, and all related support systems, including the system that failed in the two incidents mentioned above, were scheduled in detail within the test flights.
What do you think about this issue? Do you think that after this situation the aeronautical certification programs will be more strict in the world?
If you have any doubt or question you can contact us or write your query in the comments section below.
Image by Tommy Olsson via Pixabay under Creative Commons license.
