Boeing 737 Max 9s may return to operations as US aviation watchdog approves inspection procedure

The United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), on Wednesday (Jan 24), announced that it has approved an inspection procedure for grounded Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft which may pave the way for 171 grounded planes to come back into service.

The announcement comes weeks after the dramatic emergency landing of an Alaska Airlines flight due to a near-catastrophic incident where a panel known as a “door plug” blew out of the plane over the US state of Oregon.

FAA’s stern warning

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While the FAA has approved an inspection procedure for the grounded Boeing planes, it also issued a stern warning to the American planemaker. “The January 5 Boeing 737-9 Max incident must never happen again,” said the US aviation watchdog, referring to the Alaska Airlines incident.

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The FAA also said that it would not grant Boeing any production expansion of the 737 Max lineup while the safety probe is still underway.

“We grounded the Boeing 737-9 MAX within hours of the incident over Portland and made clear this aircraft would not go back into service until it was safe,” FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said in a statement.

“The exhaustive, enhanced review our team completed after several weeks of information gathering gives me and the FAA confidence to proceed to the inspection and maintenance phase,” it added.

In line with this, each of the 171 grounded aircraft must be thoroughly inspected, including the bolts, fittings and guide tracks for the door plug, the piece of fuselage that flew off during the Alaska Airlines incident.

The process would also include “detailed inspections of…dozens of associated components”.

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In a statement Wednesday, the American planemaker said it will “continue to cooperate fully and transparently with the FAA and follow their direction as we take action to strengthen safety and quality at Boeing.”

‘Not business as usual’

Whitaker noted that the American planemaker is not out of the woods just yet. “However, let me be clear: This won’t be back to business as usual for Boeing,” said the FAA official.

He added, “We will not agree to any request from Boeing for an expansion in production or approve additional production lines for the 737 MAX until we are satisfied that the quality control issues uncovered during this process are resolved.”

In a statement, United Airlines said it is targeting its Max 9s return to the skies on Sunday (Jan 28).

“In the days ahead, our teams will continue to proceed in a way that is thorough and puts safety and compliance first,” United Airlines Executive Vice President and Chief Operations Officer, Toby Enqvist, said in a statement on Wednesday evening.

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Meanwhile, Alaska Airlines, on Wednesday, said it expects the inspections to take 12 hours and for the first of its 737 Max 9 planes to return to service Friday (Jan 26). It said inspections would be completed next week.

Notably, several airlines, particularly Alaska and United Airlines have faced hundreds of cancellations a day because of the grounding.

(With inputs from agencies)