The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced Wednesday, June 26, that it has found a new problem with the 737 MAX that it says Boeing must also address before the jet can return to service. It is understood it was discovered during a simulator test last week. As a consequence of the new discovery, it is unlikely any planned certification test flight will be scheduled before July 8 at the earliest, after which the FAA will still require an additional two to three weeks to scrutinise the flight data before deciding whether or not to allow the jet to return to service.
Up until now, Boeing has been working on a software upgrade to the MCAS stall-prevention system which is believed to have been the root cause of both the Lion Air crash in Indonesia in October last year and the Ethiopian Airlines crash in March this year, which resulted in the combined loss of 346 lives. “On the most recent issue, the FAA’s process is designed to discover and highlight potential risks. The FAA recently found a potential risk that Boeing must mitigate,” the FAA said in the statement emailed to the Reuters news agency. “The FAA will lift the aircraft’s prohibition order when we deem it is safe to do so.”
