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Boeing 737 Max jets produced and not yet delivered (archive image)
Photo: Lindsey Wasson / REUTERS
Even the boss himself got behind the wheel.
Steve Dickson, head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is a longtime pilot.
And so at the end of September he insisted on piloting a Boeing 737 Max himself for two hours.
As a result of two crashes with a total of 346 fatalities, the plane has been banned from taking off for more than 600 days.
Boeing needs to improve technology, pilot training and documentation.
And the job of Dickson's agency is to find the answer to a fundamental question: when will the 737 Max be safe enough to fly again?
The FAA boss has now told Reuters news agency that the process will be "concluded in the coming days".
Before doing this, his agency must be convinced that Boeing has tackled the safety issues related to the crashes.
There have been several test flights over the past few months.
The MCAS stabilization system is at the center of attention.
It is actually supposed to prevent a dangerous stall from occurring if the pilots accidentally pull the aircraft's nose up too far.
Faulty sensors can turn the aid into a deadly trap.
Then it could want to correct problematic flight attitudes that actually do not exist - and precisely because of this cause a crash.
The core of the problem was that the MCAS system only obtained its information from one of the two angle-of-attack sensors on the aircraft.
If it was broken, there were massive problems.
Now the system should use the data from both sensors.
In addition, it should be prevented that pilots can no longer counteract manually.
In addition, the training for the pilots was adapted.
Now - unlike in the past - training in the simulator is mandatory.
"The security level achieved is high enough for us"
Reuters reports, citing three unnamed sources, that the 737 Max could be re-registered by November 18.
There is no official confirmation that Boeing did not want to comment on the report either, according to the news agency.
In addition to the FAA, other aviation authorities must also allow the 737 Max to be re-approved in their own procedures.
The European Aviation Safety Agency (Easa) in Cologne is responsible for Europe.
Their experts have also carried out their own test flights in Canada.
Afterwards, Easa boss Patrick Ky commented positively on the safety level of the aircraft after the retrofit: "Our analysis shows that it is safe. The level of safety achieved is high enough for us".
At the moment, Easa explains in response to a request from SPIEGEL, they are still working on the proposal for the 737 Max directive.
Interested parties then have the opportunity to submit comments for 28 days.
The final guideline will only be published after they have been reviewed.
This should be the case towards the end of the year or the beginning of 2021.
But even then, so it is said at Easa, the 737 Max will not return to the skies over Europe from one day to the next.
Among other things, the airlines must ensure that their pilots have received the required training and that the necessary maintenance work has been carried out after the long flight ban.
However, the 737 Max is coming back to an aviation market that looks fundamentally different from the time it was grounded.
All airlines have massive overcapacities, as there is much less flown during the Corona crisis.
As a result, the demand for machines that have been ordered but not yet delivered - Boeing has at least 450 of them on the premises - should be extremely low.
In addition, there is the currently ongoing customs dispute between the USA and Europe.
He could make the aircraft more expensive and therefore less attractive.
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