Problem aircraft Boeing 737 MAX is allowed to take off again. The American aviation authority has given FAA permission for this.
The Boeing aircraft have been on the ground for more than a year and a half because two fatal accidents with the type of aircraft occurred in a short time.
The crashes with 737 MAX aircraft in Indonesia and Ethiopia killed a total of 346 people. After the second accident, in March 2019, flights with the aircraft were banned worldwide.
It later turned out that the disasters were caused by a failing safety system, which kept pushing the nose of the aircraft down. That defect has been resolved with an update of the software.
With approval from the FAA, airlines have to update their computer software and retrain pilots, which will take at least 30 days.
Southwest Airlines, which has the most copies of the aircraft, says it could take months to meet FAA requirements and does not expect to return to flight with the 737 MAX before the second quarter of 2021.
The plane’s grounding has cost Boeing billions, disrupted the supply chain, and led to investigations that concluded that there was a lack of transparency and proper oversight at Boeing and the FAA during the development of the 737 MAX. A criminal investigation is still ongoing.