FAA Clears Boeing 737 Max 9 to Return After Inspection
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Wednesday halted Boeing ’s planned expansion of its 737 Max aircraft production. But the agency has cleared a path for the Max 9 to return to service in coming days, almost three weeks after a door plug blew out mid-flight on an Alaska Airlines jet.
The FAA approved a thorough inspection and maintenance process that must be performed on each of the grounded 171 Boeing 737-9 MAX aircraft. Upon successful completion, the aircraft will be eligible to return to service.
“We grounded the Boeing 737-9 MAX within hours of the incident over Portland and made clear this aircraft would not go back into service until it was safe,” FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said in a statement. “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.
“However, let me be clear: 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.”
Boeing has been scrambling to ramp up output of its best-selling aircraft as airlines are looking to boost schedules in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Now those airlines could be forced to adjust their fleet and capacity expansion plans.
The FAA offered no estimate on how long the production limitation would last and did not specify the number of planes Boeing can produce each month.
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