The Boeing 737 Max Roars Back into the Skies

On March 18, 2019, the Boeing 737 MAX airliner was grounded by all countries across the globe operating this latest version of the most widely used latform. Altogether, there were 387 aircraft being operated the world over by 59 airlines providing 8,600 flights per week. The decision to ground this particular fleet was triggered by the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 operating a Boeing 737 MAX 8. This disaster took place a few minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa airport in Ethiopia in which all 149 passengers and eight crew members on board perished. The aircraft was practically brand new as it had been with the airline for just four months. Before this accident, on October 29, 2018, an Indonesian airline Lion Air Flight 610, a Boeing 737 MAX 8, that took off from Jakarta, crashed into the Java Sea shortly after takeoff. There were 189 lives lost in this accident. This was the first major accident involving a Boeing 737 MAX which is an updated version of the Boeing 737.

Soon after the accident on October 29, 2018 involving the Boeing 737 MAX, the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) revealed that the MAX version had a newly designed automated flight control called the Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), that would push the nose of airplane down if for any reason, the MCAS received correct or erroneous inputs of the nose of the aircraft pitching up and heading for a stall. Under these circumstances, the pilot would not be able to manually override the nose down attitude forced by the MCAS. Unfortunately, for some strange reason, there was no mention of this newly introduced system in the flight manual and as such, pilots were not aware of the consequences of the failure of this system and of the procedure to be followed in the event of its failure. Hence in both cases of malfunction of MCAS leading to crash of the airliners, pilots in command were not able to take appropriate action to regain control of the aircraft.

Failure of the OEM to include information on the MCAS in the flight manual and the action by the pilot in the event of malfunction of the system, was indeed a serious lapse on the part of the company. However, for some reason, this was not observed and recorded by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). This undoubtedly cast a shadow on the process of certification of the new model of the aircraft by the US regulatory agency. The two crashes in less than five months for the same reason, ought to have been clear evidence that there was a systemic flaw in the aircraft as well as in the regulatory system then in vogue. Clearly, this needed immediate attention by the OEM to make the necessary modification to the MCAS and include the relevant information in the flight manual. These two accidents were indicative of the need for review and restructuring of the regulatory procedures to remove inherent flaws in the system if any.

In March 2019, soon after the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302, the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure initiated investigation into the design, development, and certification of the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft and related matters that led to the two disasters. Apart from the design flaw in the MCAS, the Investigating Committee observed that the FAA’s certification review of the Boeing 737 MAX was grossly insufficient and that the FAA failed in its duty to identify key safety problems and to ensure that they were adequately addressed during the certification process. The combination of these problems led to the loss of two airliners and loss of precious lives. Grounding of the fleet of Boeing 737 MAX across the globe came a deep shock to the parent company that was already under considerable financial stress while battling its major competitor Airbus. Boeing cut production of the 737 MAX by ten units per month and was prepared to reduce it further if the grounding continued. Meanwhile, Boeing undertook complete redesign of the software of the MCAS and built in recovery procedures from incorrect inputs in the flight system to eliminate all possibility of conflict between the MCAS and the pilot. Apart from the technical improvements, every pilot to fly the Boeing 737 MAX are now required to undertake a twohour training course on a computer followed by an hour of flight simulator training.

After nearly two years of grounding during which the parent company worked diligently to remove the anomalies in the software, in mid November this year, the FAA has finally given the green light for the Boeing 737 MAX to return to service.