More than a year after the model was banned from flying worldwide, revised aircraft should be extensively tested for their suitability.
Wien. For a year, three months and 16 days, all 387 Boeing 737 Max aircraft already delivered to airlines have been on the ground at airports worldwide. There are also another 400 or so machines that Boeing has already built but has not yet been able to deliver to customers. The grounding was triggered by two crashes with a total of 346 deaths in October 2018 and March 2019, which were due to faulty systems of Boeing’s hope for the future.
Today, Monday, this inglorious chapter for the US aircraft manufacturer is slowly coming to an end. Because now, in cooperation with the US aviation authority FAA, a three-day test marathon should begin, in which revised 737 Max aircraft are put through their paces. This is a necessary prerequisite for regaining flight approval.
Specifically, the aircraft are supposed to go through a wide variety of flight scenarios in the airspace above the sparsely populated US state of Washington – where Boeing’s headquarters are also located. Extreme flight maneuvers are to be flown here.
System MCAS im Fokus
Of course, the focus of the tests will naturally be on the MCAS system. As reported several times, this was identified as the cause of the two crashes. The system was supposed to prevent an airplane from starting a too steep climb. Because this could – due to the slowdown – lead to a sudden stall under the wings, which would cause the machine to sag. MCAS should counteract this by automatically lowering the nose of the aircraft.
In the two crashes, however, the system may have received incorrect signals from sensors. It therefore assumed that the machines were climbing too strongly and pushed the nose down. As a result, the planes were pushed into the crash, so to speak. The tests that are now starting are intended to demonstrate that the MCAS revised by Boeing no longer exhibits such misconduct.
After the test cycle, the FAA should analyze the knowledge gained in this way in order to make a decision about the re-registration of the aircraft. Before that happens, however, FAA chief Steve Dickson will personally form a judgment on board a 737 Max, it is said. Dickson made this promise in the wake of the 737 Max Grounding, in which the role of the FAA didn’t come off particularly well either.
As new training procedures for the 737 Max pilots also have to be approved, the grounding is not expected to be lifted before September. The European authorities will then be able to review the work of their US colleagues before the 737 Max can start up again in Europe. (Reuters)
(“Die Presse”, print edition, June 29, 2020)
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