After an almost two year ban, the Civil Aviation Authority (AAM) has again started to receive flight applications for the B737 MAX Boeing aircraft model.
The planemaker saw its best-selling aircraft grounded globally after a deadly crash in March 2019 involving an Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max, with the AAM following suit. It was the second 737 Max disaster in six months after a Lion Air plane in Indonesia crashed in October 2018, killing 189 people.
Investigators identified faults in the sensors and new flight control software that had not been explained to pilots.
‘The Boeing Company subsequently worked on the modifications to the aircraft design and the revision of the crew procedures and the flight crew training. Specifically, the actions included the updating of the flight control computer software, the revision of the non-normal checklists, the revision of the flight crew training programme to ensure that the pilots are well trained for the operations and so on,’ the AAM noted.
The aviation authority added that it closely monitored the work progress achieved by Boeing while taking part as an observer in the outreach sessions and the virtual briefing organized by the US Federal Aviation Administration and keeping close contact with the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) and the Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department on their evaluation of the B737 MAX return to service.
‘Having analyzed the airworthiness directives published by the CAAC, the FAA and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), [the AACM] accepts that the B737 MAX aircraft has met the conditions for the return to service and the Authority has resumed the acceptance of the flight applications with the aircraft model’
More than 180 countries now allow the use of the 737 Max, with Australia, Japan, India, Malaysia and Singapore lifting their bans last year.
Boeing has admitted full responsibility for the second crash of its 737 Max model in Ethiopia, in a legal agreement with the families of the 157 victims
