The US Aviation Agency (FAA) plans to require Boeing to move certain electrical wiring on all 737 MAX aircraft before re-authorizing the aircraft to fly, the Wall Street Journal said Sunday.
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This decision would apply to the nearly 800 aircraft already produced, those delivered to customers and those still in the hands of Boeing, which would further complicate the return of the plane in the sky, specifies the economic daily.
The way some cables are laid out would not, in the eyes of the FAA, meet safety standards to prevent short circuits, says the Wall Street Journal. " In extreme circumstances, a wiring problem could lead the flight control systems to strongly pull down the nose of the plane ", as in the two fatal accidents on 737 MAX of the companies Lion Air then Ethiopian Airlines, writes the daily. The regulator could, according to the Wall Street Journal, further revise its decision after discussions internally or based on new data transmitted by Boeing.
In a message sent to AFP, the FAA affirms for its part that it " continues to exchange with Boeing " on this problem of wiring. The green light will be given " only when the FAA believes that all safety concerns have been resolved, " added the regulator.
The entire 737 MAX fleet was banned from flying worldwide a few days after the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX that killed its 157 occupants on March 10, 2019. As in the crash of Lion Air in Indonesia in October 2018, which left 189 dead, it was the MCAS anti-stall system that was questioned.
Boeing confirmed that it was " in constant discussions with the FAA on the cable problem ". But " whatever the final decision on this subject, we are still planning a return to service for the MAX mid-2020, " the group said in a message to AFP.
Read also: 737 Max: how Boeing seeks to restore the relationship of trust with pilots
A few days before the commemoration of the tragedy of Ethiopian Airlines, the elected representatives of the House of Representatives in the United States concluded, in a preliminary report released on Friday, that the 737 MAX was a plane " fundamentally defective and dangerous ", which demonstrated the need to reform legislation and regulations relating to the certification of airliners.
