Pilots test fix blamed for crashes

Pilots and test crew members aim to kick off a certification test campaign for the 737 Max on Tuesday.

An Alaska Airlines Boeing 737-9 Max lands at Paine Field near Boeing's manufacturing facility in Everett, Washington state, in March. Picture: AP

Pilots and test crew members from the US Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing aim to kick off a certification test campaign for the 737 Max on Tuesday AEST, people familiar with the matter say.

The flight test is a pivotal ­moment in Boeing’s worst-ever corporate crisis.

The grounding of the fast-­selling 737 Max in March 2019 after crashes killed 346 people in Ethiopia and Indonesia triggered hundreds of lawsuits, investi­gations by US congress and the Department of Justice and cut off a key source of Boeing’s cash.

After a preflight briefing, the crew will board a 737 Max 7 outfitted with special test equipment at Boeing Field near Seattle, one of the people said. The crew will run scripted mid-air scenarios such as steep-banking turns, progressing to more extreme manoeuvres on a route over Washington state.

Pilots will also intentionally trigger the reprogrammed stall-prevention software known as MCAS faulted in both crashes, and will likely perform a full aerodynamic stall. The tests are to ensure that new protections Boeing added to the manoeuvring characteristics augmentation system are robust enough to prevent the scenario pilots encountered in both crash flights and will likely perform a full aerodynamic stall, the people said.

Reuters