Photo: Boeing Media
Boeing Commercial Airplanes looks to be getting the long-sought extension of a deadline imposed by the United States Congress on a new safety standard for its MAX 7 and MAX 10 airliners they have been exhaustively lobbying for all year.
More specifically, the new safety standards would mandate that before any new aircraft could be certified to fly by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), it must have a modern cockpit alert system. For Boeing, the deadline of December 27, would impact two variants of its 737 MAX family of planes, the MAX 7 and the MAX 10. These are the only two variants of the 737 MAX planes to have not received certification.
The mandate and deadline were established by Congress in 2020, as a result of two fatal crashes involving 737 MAX planes, killing 346 people in Indonesia and Ethiopia. In both crashes, faulty data from a single sensor mistakenly triggered the activation of the planes' Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), causing the planes to enter unrecoverable steep dives. The MCAS is designed to provide consistent handling characteristics of a plane in a very specific set of unusual conditions.
The MCAS on certified planes has been updated to utilize data from two Angle of Attack (AOA) sensors in response to an FAA directive in 2020. Each sensor will send its data to the plane's flight computer. The MCAS will only be activated in both sensors agree and will only be activated once. The system will not prohibit the pilot from the ability to control the aircraft using the control arm alone.
Before the updates, the pilot was unable to override the system without going through a myriad of steps.
The extension was spurred on by a proposal by U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell, chair of the Senate Commerce Committee which suggested requiring existing MAX airplanes to be fitted with an enhanced AOA sensor and a means to shut off stall warnings and overspeed alerts for all MAX aircraft.
The extension that will require the 'enhanced' AOA sensor will be added to a massive bill to fund U.S. Government operations that must be passed in the coming days, according to Reuters.
Without the extension, the future of the two variants would have been threatened and could possibly have been scrubbed altogether or, at the very least, delayed in their deployment into service. The alerting system does not apply to other variants already in service as they are relying on the dual AOA sensor approach.
The Chicago-based aircraft manufacturer had stated in October, it expected the MAX 7 to be certified this year, followed by the MAX 10 in late 2023 or early 2024.
There was significant opposition to the extension from both the families of those killed in the crashes and industry experts.
Michael Stumo, whose daughter died in the Ethiopian Airlines MAX crash, criticized the decision to add the provision, noting Congress had held no hearings on Boeing's request to extend the deadline. "No data, no examination," Stumo told Reuters on Monday. "This is how people die on planes.
International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers President Robert Martinez told congressional leaders in Dec. 14 letters seen by Reuters that the "deadline threatens to cancel the MAX-10 and MAX-7 aircraft programs, which would result in devastating impacts on thousands of workers and their communities throughout the U.S., as well as the future of the U.S. aerospace industry."
From the outside, it would have been a shock for lawmakers not to grant an extension before the deadline, as Boeing is the nation's largest export manufacturer and third biggest largest overall behind oil and gas extraction and petroleum refining.
The mandate and deadline were established by Congress in 2020, as a result of two fatal crashes involving 737 MAX planes, killing 346 people in Indonesia and Ethiopia. In both crashes, faulty data from a single sensor mistakenly triggered the activation of the planes' Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), causing the planes to enter unrecoverable steep dives. The MCAS is designed to provide consistent handling characteristics of a plane in a very specific set of unusual conditions.
The MCAS on certified planes has been updated to utilize data from two Angle of Attack (AOA) sensors in response to an FAA directive in 2020. Each sensor will send its data to the plane's flight computer. The MCAS will only be activated in both sensors agree and will only be activated once. The system will not prohibit the pilot from the ability to control the aircraft using the control arm alone.
Before the updates, the pilot was unable to override the system without going through a myriad of steps.
The extension was spurred on by a proposal by U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell, chair of the Senate Commerce Committee which suggested requiring existing MAX airplanes to be fitted with an enhanced AOA sensor and a means to shut off stall warnings and overspeed alerts for all MAX aircraft.
The extension that will require the 'enhanced' AOA sensor will be added to a massive bill to fund U.S. Government operations that must be passed in the coming days, according to Reuters.
Without the extension, the future of the two variants would have been threatened and could possibly have been scrubbed altogether or, at the very least, delayed in their deployment into service. The alerting system does not apply to other variants already in service as they are relying on the dual AOA sensor approach.
The Chicago-based aircraft manufacturer had stated in October, it expected the MAX 7 to be certified this year, followed by the MAX 10 in late 2023 or early 2024.
There was significant opposition to the extension from both the families of those killed in the crashes and industry experts.
Michael Stumo, whose daughter died in the Ethiopian Airlines MAX crash, criticized the decision to add the provision, noting Congress had held no hearings on Boeing's request to extend the deadline. "No data, no examination," Stumo told Reuters on Monday. "This is how people die on planes.
International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers President Robert Martinez told congressional leaders in Dec. 14 letters seen by Reuters that the "deadline threatens to cancel the MAX-10 and MAX-7 aircraft programs, which would result in devastating impacts on thousands of workers and their communities throughout the U.S., as well as the future of the U.S. aerospace industry."
From the outside, it would have been a shock for lawmakers not to grant an extension before the deadline, as Boeing is the nation's largest export manufacturer and third biggest largest overall behind oil and gas extraction and petroleum refining.
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