FAA Seeks Pilots' Input to Establish New 737 MAX Procedures
August 22 2019 - 10:49PM
Dow Jones News
By Alison Sider
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is asking pilots from
airlines that fly the Boeing Co. (BA) 737 MAX to participate in
simulator testing to help validate new procedures for the plane
that was grounded in March following two crashes.
The FAA said in a statement that it will invite "a cross-section
of line pilots from carriers that operate the aircraft around the
world," with the only requirement for participation being some
previous experience at the controls of a MAX.
The aviation regulator hasn't set a schedule for the tests, but
said they must be completed before the aircraft is approved to
return to service. Boeing had previously said it is on track to
submit materials to the FAA in a time frame that will allow the
plane to return to service early in the fourth quarter.
One airline was asked to provide names for two pilot crews,
including for a pair of relatively junior pilots who have been
through just one cycle of recurrent training on the 737, an
official said.
The FAA asked the three U.S. airlines that operate the
MAX--Southwest Airlines Co. (LUV), American Airlines Group Inc.
(AAL) and United Airlines Holdings Inc. (UAL)-- to provide the
names of some pilots who had only flown the 737 for around a year,
Reuters reported previously.
The FAA said it hasn't specified a certain number of hours of
flight experience for the crews.
Boeing's 737 was grounded after two crashes--an Ethiopian
Airlines flight in March and a Lion Air flight in October
2018--exposed issues with the aircraft's flight-control system. The
crashes claimed 346 lives.
In late June, Boeing and the FAA disclosed another
flight-control problem on the MAX, involving the failure of a
microprocessor that meant test pilots couldn't counteract a
potential misfire of an automated system as quickly as
required.
Regulators have also been focused on the speed at which pilots
react to a range of extreme emergencies involving various
flight-control features, and have raised concerns about whether the
average pilot has enough physical strength to manually crank a
flight-control wheel in such extreme situations.
Write to Alison Sider at alison.sider@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 22, 2019 22:34 ET (02:34 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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