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New controversy over the return to flight of the Boeing 737 MAX

AAs the European Parliament is considering lifting the ban on the flight of the Boeing 737 MAX in European skies, the green light given last month by the US regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration, is once again being challenged. Cited by the BBC, a report by Ed Pierson, a former senior production executive at Boeing’s 737 Renton plant near Seattle, raised new concerns about the aircraft’s safety. He says regulators and investigators have largely ignored factors that he says may have played a direct role in the crashes, and relate to production systems at the Renton plant, the only one for the MAX. These failures, according to Pierson, would also affect the previous version, the 737 NG (next generation), available in four versions (737-600, 700, 800 and 900). Boeing considers these accusations to be baseless.

Ed Pierson, a US Navy veteran who served in a managerial position on the 737 production line from 2015 to 2018, was heard at length during congressional hearings on disasters involving the MAX, not mince words . He had become so concerned about production conditions at the factory that he told his bosses “he was reluctant to take his own family on a Boeing plane”.

In 2018, he told Congress, the plant was in a “chaotic” and “dysfunctional” state due to pressure from managers to build new planes as quickly as possible. His report is based on evidence from official investigations. He claims the two planes that crashed suffered – according to him – from production flaws, almost from the time they entered service. These included intermittent problems with the flight control system and electrical anomalies that occurred in the days and weeks leading up to the accidents.

“Sully” gets involved

Ed Pierson’s claims are supported by statements from Captain Chesley Sullenberger. This aviation safety expert, better known by the nickname “Sully”, was at the controls of an Airbus which he landed on the Hudson River in front of Manhattan in 2009, when the two reactors had been destroyed during a collision with wild geese. Chesley Sullenberger also feels that the modifications to the MAX don’t go far enough.

According to him, changes are necessary to the on-board warning systems, which have been adapted from a previous version of the 737 and are “not up to modern standards”. “Ed Pierson’s report is very disturbing, about manufacturing issues at Boeing factories that go far beyond just the MAX, and also affect … the previous version of the 737,” “Sully” told Congress. .

The FAA defends itself and insists that it only approved the return to service of the MAX after a “thorough and methodical safety review process”. The American agency specifies: “None of the numerous investigations into the two accidents has provided proof that a production defect played a role”, and stresses that “each plane leaving the factory is inspected by a team of FAA inspectors before being cleared for delivery ”.

European green light may be imminent

This controversy comes as the European Parliament’s Transport Committee hears this Monday morning the director of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) Patrick Ky, on the reasons which led him to announce that the flight ban of the Boeing 737 MAX in European skies would be lifted this week. Not so quickly, reacted the Transport Committee, which summoned him this Monday for a hearing. “We want to be sure that this plane will fly safely”, explained in The Parisian the chair of the commission, the elected EELV Karima Delli.

EASA, whose conclusions are generally close to those of the FAA, had carried out its own test campaign. However, the European authority which had prescribed the installation, as on the Airbus, of a third angle of attack sensor (AOA), finally gave up at the urgent request of the Americans. The failure of this sensor during an accident was however at the origin of the malfunction of the MCAS (anti-stall) leading to the crash.

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