Boeing 737 Max could be grounded during the holidays; canceled flights

• According to a new report from the Wall Street Journal, further delays in efforts to put the Boeing 737 Max back into the air could mean that the plane will not be put back into service before the holiday vacation season.
• A Boeing briefing to international regulators in August was cut short when officials complained that Boeing had not provided the necessary technical details or answered specific questions.
• An additional software problem has also been detected in recent weeks, requiring another hotfix.
• American and United removed the Max from their schedules in December, while the Southwest said it would prevent the aircraft from being used until at least January, whether or not it was allowed by regulators earlier .
• Boeing shares slid Tuesday following reports that the plane may not fly until 2020.

• Visit the Business Insider home page for more stories.

While the global stranding of the Boeing 737 Max is in its sixth month, a new report suggests that Boeing's estimate for a return to heaven in November is seriously compromised.

Tensions between Boeing and international aviation regulators have threatened to delay the return of the plane, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

The latest complication comes after a Boeing briefing in August that had been cut short by a group of international authorities, including the United States, Europe, Brazil and other regions. Regulators complained that Boeing had not provided adequate technical details or answered specific questions about the changes to the flight computers of the new generation of 737 jet aircraft.

Boeing was forced to resubmit documents describing software changes that he plans to submit for aircraft recertification, according to newspaper sources, which include government officials and pilot unions. These changes will be reviewed by the FAA prior to a follow-up meeting at which simulator exercises and flight tests of the final software may be performed.

Persistent security concerns

Even more delays are possible when new security issues arise.

Boeing and the FAA have reported another potential flight control problem in recent weeks regarding flight computers, according to the WSJ report. Additional software changes should be enough to solve the problem, but additional testing will be needed, according to two government officials and pilot unions. The scope or scale of the latest issue was not clear in the immediate future.

Read more: Boeing plans to hire hundreds of temporary workers to help deliver 737 Max aircrafts grounded, but families of those dead in an accident involving the plane say not so fast

The 737 Max is stuck worldwide since March, after the second of two fatal accidents. The first, in Indonesia in October 2018, killed 189 people. The second, on March 10 in Ethiopia, killed 157 people.

An uncertain calendar for the return

Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg has already stated that Boeing plans to submit the final version of its proposed software patch to the FAA in September, with approval expected to result in the end of the grounding at the beginning of the month. November; However, Wall Street Journal sources said the latest issue would add "still several weeks late, which would significantly reduce the chances of many planes returning to North America during the Christmas holidays, such as Boeing and some US carriers have projected publicly ".

The airlines with Max fleets in their fleets abstained from publicly estimating the time of return of the plane, removing it from their schedules one month at a time.

United and American have both announced further delays over the past few days. Previously, airlines had removed planes from their scheduled schedule in the early days of November.

Now, American has withdrawn the troubled jet from his program until December 3, while United has withdrawn from its program until December 19.

Read more: Russian company sues Boeing for hundreds of millions of dollars on its 737 Max order. This company could be the first of a dozen similar lawsuits against the plan maker.

Southwest Airlines – which operates the largest number of 737 Max aircraft compared to an American company – had already removed the aircraft from its schedule until early January 2020.

The United States and United have stated that they expect cancellations due to Max's delay, while stressing that they plan to use alternative aircraft and other methods to rehabilitate The passengers.

"American Airlines remains confident that the imminent software updates of the Boeing 737 MAX, as well as the new training elements that Boeing is developing in coordination with its union partners, will result in the recertification of the aircraft this year," the airline said. airline on a dedicated web page about the 737 Max grounding. "American is extending cancellations for the MAX until December 3. In doing so, our customers and our team members can more reliably plan their next trip with American."

American has announced that it will cancel 140 flights per day until December 3, while United hoped to cancel about 93 flights per day in November and 96 per day in December.

"… follow a meticulous process, not a prescribed schedule …"

We understand that the airlines are eager to put them back into service. The grounding of their current aircraft, as well as Boeing's delivery delays, had financial and operational consequences. Although the limited series of HSA schedule extensions have left a cautious optimism about the aircraft's return to service this year, some industry officials have expressed the belief that it will remain stuck until 2020. .

The August meeting was intended to give regulators the opportunity to become familiar with Boeing's plans to improve security by solving a flight computer design problem, a process likely to be difficult. Help speed up the review once Boeing has submitted the final package. This problem, that the design of the jet was based on a single flight computer – like previous versions of the 737 – could make the aircraft vulnerable to the dangers caused by faulty sensors, such as what had contributed to the two fatal accidents.

Read more: A panel of Boeing 737 Max reportedly told the FAA to revise the way it certifies new aircraft

Boeing has not publicly announced any change in its schedule, while the FAA has stated that it "continues to follow a careful process, not a prescribed timetable, for the return of the aircraft. to the passenger service ".

Preliminary reports on the two accidents that led to the grounding – Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 – indicate that an automated system was mistakenly engaged and was forced nose planes to point down due to a problem of system software design. The pilots could not regain control of the plane.

The system was engaged because it could be activated by a single sensor reading. In both accidents, the sensors are suspected of being out of order, they sent erroneous data to the flight computer and, without redundant verification, triggered the automated system.

The automated system, the Manning Enhancement System (MCAS), was designed to compensate for the fact that the 737 Max's engines are more powerful than those of previous generations. Large engines could tip the nose of the plane, resulting in a stall. In this case, the MCAS could automatically point the nose down to cancel the effect of the engine size.