The US aviation regulator on Friday (Jan 12) extended the grounding of Boeing 737 MAX 9 airplanes indefinitely and announced it will tighten oversight of Boeing itself after a cabin panel broke off a new jet in mid-flight.
As United Airlines and Alaska Airlines cancelled flights through Tuesday, the Federal Aviation Administration also said it will require another round of inspections before it will consider putting the jets back in service.
Under more stringent supervision, the regulator will audit the Boeing 737 MAX 9 production line and suppliers and consider having an independent entity take over from Boeing certain aspects of certifying the safety of new aircraft that the FAA previously assigned to the planemaker.
The FAA said the continued grounding of 171 planes with the same configuration as the one in the incident was “for the safety of American travellers”. The regulator said Monday the grounding would be lifted once they were inspected.
But on Friday, the FAA said 40 of the planes must be reinspected, then the agency will review the results and determine if safety is adequate to allow the MAX 9s to resume flying.
Alaska Airlines and United Airlines, the two US airlines that use the aircraft involved, have had to cancel hundreds of flights in the last week due to the grounding as a widening crisis engulfed the US planemaker.
Alaska and United on Friday both cancelled all MAX 9 flights through Tuesday and United cancelled some additional flights in the following days.
Reuters
