It took 22 months for the conditions to be met for the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) to allow Boeing to fly its 737 MAX again in European skies.
The plane was grounded after two accidents that killed 346, Lion Air in Indonesia in October 2018 (189 dead) and Ethiopian Airlines in March 2019 in Ethiopia (157 dead).
"We think we will publish it (the airworthiness directive, editor's note) next week. From our point of view, the MAX will be able to fly again [in Europe] from next week", explained Tuesday, January 19 Patrick Ky, director of EASA, during a video press conference with the German aeronautical press association Luftfahrt-Presse-Club (LPC).
"We have reached the stage where our four prerequisites have been fulfilled," said Patrick Ky, citing "the good understanding of what had happened", the fact that "all the factors which contributed to the accidents have been resolved", that a number of "critical" points can be verified by EASA itself and that pilots are "properly informed and trained".
"We have enjoyed full transparency from the FAA and Boeing," the official added.
"We are being silenced"
In November, the United States Aviation Agency (FAA), the primary certification body for an American aircraft, then the Brazilian authorities, gave the green light.
The president of an association representing the relatives of 11 European victims of the Ethiopian Airlines accident, Virginie Fricaudet, lamented to AFP "the return to flight of this plane" which "has undergone minimal modifications" .
"We are subjected to silence by not informing us, especially when we are aware of the dimension of the scandal," she said.
Boeing, officially accused at the beginning of January of having misled the American authorities during the approval process of the 737 MAX, admitted its responsibility and agreed to pay more than 2.5 billion dollars to settle certain lawsuits.
The authorization to fly in Europe for the MAX means that Boeing, stunned by the setbacks of the last generation of its medium-haul and by the Covid-19 crisis, will be able to resume its deliveries to the European continent.
Problems with incidence probes
During the two accidents, it was after receiving erroneous information from one of the two AOA angle of attack probes, indicating that the aircraft was in a stall, that the MCAS software had run away despite the pilots' efforts to deactivate it. , and had pitched the plane.
The planes must undergo a modification of the MCAS software.
Other software must also be changed and some cables repositioned.
To resolve the problem of the two probes, Boeing is going to develop a third, digital one, which will be installed on planes from 2022. In the meantime, specific training for pilots to identify and manage contradictory information from the two probes is being implemented. in place, according to Patrick Ky.
In the United States, the 737 MAX resumed service on December 29.
Since the re-flight clearance, Boeing has delivered 27 737 MAXs, including 10 to American Airlines.
A total of 723 aircraft have been ordered by 14 European customers (none French), of which 210 remain to be delivered to Ryanair, 92 to Norwegian Air Shuttle and 63 to Turkish Airlines.
Nearly 450 aircraft produced and scheduled for delivery when the aircraft was banned are stored in Boeing parking lots and need to be thoroughly serviced before customers receive them.
With AFP
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