Under intense political pressure, Boeing on Monday withdrew its request for an exemption from key safety regulations to allow the 737 Max 7 to be certified to carry passengers.
“We have informed the FAA that we are withdrawing our request for a time-limited exemption relating to the engine inlet de-icing system on the 737-7,” Boeing said in a statement. “We will instead incorporate an engineering solution that will be completed during the certification process.”
This means entry into passenger service of the Max 7, the smallest model of the Max family, will be significantly delayed until Boeing can design a fix for the flawed design and get it approved by the Federal Aviation Administration.
It will cut Boeing’s promised cash flow for the year, though by how much is not yet clear. And key Max 7 customer Southwest Airlines, which has 302 of the jets on order, faces inevitable delivery delays.
Scrutiny of Boeing has intensified since a Jan. 5 incident in which a piece of fuselage blew out of another Max, the longer Max 9.
U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois, who last week was the first in Congress to call for the FAA to deny the exemption, said Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun told her Monday that Boeing has come to an agreement with Southwest over the delay in delivering the jet.
“This was a tough decision on their part, but I’m glad they took it because I think this is good for Boeing’s future and also for America’s flying public,” Duckworth said in an interview.
Last week Southwest announced that it had taken the Max 7 out of its plans for this year.
Exemption requested for serious design flaw
The FAA had determined last summer that a design flaw uncovered in the Max’s engine inlet de-icing system could be potentially catastrophic.
The Max’s engine inlet, the circular part at the front end of the pod surrounding the engine — known as a nacelle — is made from carbon composite, unlike earlier model 737s, which have a metal inlet.
Flying through cold, water-saturated air, the de-icing system — similar in purpose to the defroster on a car — blows hot air onto the engine inlet to prevent a buildup of ice.
But Boeing discovered after the Max entered service that if the system remained switched on after leaving the icy air, it could overheat and damage the composite structure, possibly leading it to break off the nacelle.
In an August Airworthiness Directive, the FAA stated that debris from such a breakup could penetrate the fuselage, putting passengers seated at windows behind the wings in danger, and could damage the wing or tail of the plane, “which could result in loss of control of the airplane.”
Boeing assessed the risk of this scenario as “extremely improbable,” and so the FAA allowed the Maxes currently in service, the Max 8 and Max 9, to continue flying — but with a directive to pilots that they must turn the system off after leaving icy air and not fly with it on for more than five minutes in dry air.
However, that compromise solution couldn’t work for a jet like the Max 7 that is not yet certified. To get that approval to carry passengers, it must meet all safety regulations.
Hence Boeing’s petition for a formal exemption for the Max 7 from the safety standards until it designed a solution.
Boeing in December asked for an exemption through June 2026 so the Max 7 could be certified and enter service this year with Southwest while Boeing worked on a fix for the flawed system.
Boeing argued that, meanwhile, the Max 7 would be just as safe as the two Max models that are already cleared to fly.
Alaska Airlines incident changes calculus
At the end of 2023, the FAA was expected to grant that petition as early as this month. But the blowout of a piece of fuselage on an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 over Portland on Jan. 5 changed that prospect dramatically.
As the National Transportation Safety Board investigation into that incident continues, Boeing’s safety culture has come under intense scrutiny.
The Allied Pilots Association, the union representing 15,000 American Airlines pilots, opposed granting the exemption on the grounds that it wasn’t good enough to rely on pilots remembering to turn off the system when not doing so could be catastrophic.
The union and various aviation safety experts urged Boeing instead to expedite a design fix. That is Boeing’s new plan.
Duckworth — chair of the Aviation Safety Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation — urged this shift when she met with CEO Calhoun in her office for 90 minutes on Thursday.
She said the FAA has never granted certification to a new airplane with a known fault and told Calhoun that doing so now would be “setting a new low in safety standards.”
“Over the course of pretty intense discussion, we got to a point where he said that he would look at it and get back to me,” Duckworth said, declaring herself “pleasantly surprised” at Boeing’s quick about-face Monday.
“This is a good solid step toward renewing the culture of safety that Boeing used to lead the world in,” said Duckworth, a former U.S. Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter pilot who in 2004 lost both legs in combat during the second battle for Fallujah in Iraq.
“Boeing is a great company. A Boeing jet flew me into combat and a Boeing took me home when I was wounded,” she said. “So I want nothing but success for Boeing.”
It’s unclear how quickly Boeing engineers can devise a fix for the engine inlet de-icing system and get it approved.
“As always, the FAA will determine the timing of certification and we will follow their lead every step of the way,” Boeing’s statement said.
Company spokesperson Bobbie Egan said how soon Boeing can come up with a fix will be discussed publicly Wednesday when Calhoun holds a fourth-quarter earnings call with financial analysts.
Duckworth said Calhoun had told her Thursday that he was “very confident that they would have a fix before 2026.”
When Boeing does come up with a technical solution, it will also have to be retrofitted to the Max 8s and Max 9s flying today, though there’s no timeline yet for this to happen.
APA pilot union spokesperson Dennis Tajer said Monday that Boeing’s decision to withdraw its Max 7 safety exemption request is “good news for Max airplanes not yet certified.”
“But we’ve got miles to go before we rest,” he added. “There are hundreds of airplanes flying with this same exposure, dependent on pilot memory to avoid a failure.”
“We need the engine anti-ice issue resolved on the hundreds of Max airplanes that are flying today,” Tajer said.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Washington, chair of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, who on Thursday had backed Duckworth’s call for the FAA to deny Boeing’s petition, echoed Tajer’s reaction.
“This is good news,” Cantwell said in a statement. “I hope this means (Boeing) can quickly develop a compliant design across other Max planes.”
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