por admin » Mar Dic 29, 2020 10:44 am
First U.S. commercial Boeing 737 Max flight in nearly 2 years takes off
PUBLISHED TUE, DEC 29 20206:00 AM ESTUPDATED TUE, DEC 29 202010:41 AM EST
Leslie Josephs
@LESLIEJOSEPHS
American is the first airline to return the planes to commercial service in the U.S. since they were grounded in March 2019 after two crashes.
United and Southwest plan to fly the planes again in the first half of 2021.
The jets are returning to a travel market devastated by the coronavirus.
WATCH NOW
VIDEO03:08
First Boeing 737 Max passenger flight scheduled to take off from Miami
MIAMI — The first U.S. commercial flight of Boeing’s 737 Max since two deadly crashes prompted a worldwide grounding of the planes in March 2019 took off on Wednesday.
American Airlines Flight 718 departed Miami International Airport for New York’s LaGuardia Airport.
“We’re flying on a Boeing 737 Max,” Capt. Sean Roskey announced over the plane’s PA system, to some applause from passengers, which included American Airlines’ president, crew and other employees. “We have the utmost confidence in this aircraft. As a matter of fact, my wife is on board.”
The 172-seat plane has 87 passengers on board, an American Airlines spokeswoman said. The Max flight back to Miami later Tuesday is nearly full.
The Fort Worth, Texas-based carrier is operating a once-daily roundtrip flight between the two airports and then plans to increase service to other cities in the coming weeks. United Airlines plans to start Max flights on Feb. 11 from its Denver and Houston hubs. Southwest Airlines has said it would start flying the planes in the second quarter.
Brazilian carrier Gol, which operates an all-Boeing 737 fleet, earlier this month was the first airline to relaunch the jets. The planes, more fuel-efficient than previous models, are central to the plans of airlines around the world, with more than 3,000 of them on order.
The milestone flights come after the largest grounding in U.S. aviation history was ended just over a month ago after the Federal Aviation Administration cleared the Max to fly again, signing off on several safety-related changes Boeing made to the aircraft, its bestselling plane.
Pilots in both crashes — Lion Air flight 610 in Indonesia in October 2018 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in Ethiopia in March 2019 — battled an automated flight-control system that was erroneously activated. All 346 people on the two flights were killed. Changes included making the flight-control system less aggressive, providing more redundancy and implementing more robust pilot training that includes time in a flight simulator.
WATCH NOW
VIDEO05:49
FAA chief says conditions that occurred in two fatal Boeing 737 Max are now ‘impossible’
Damning investigations in the wake of the crashes found problems with the plane’s development, design and certification by U.S. regulators, tarnishing the reputation of Boeing and the FAA, long the gold standard in aviation safety. The crashes also prompted new legislation tightening the FAA’s oversight of aircraft certification.
Family members of several victims have urged regulators in the U.S. and abroad not to lift their flight bans on the jets, calling the planes unsafe.
American and other carriers that operate the Max have said that if customers booked on the aircraft don’t feel comfortable flying on the plane, they can switch flights without paying a fee if options are available. American Airlines hasn’t registered travelers booking off the jet for other flights, an airline spokeswoman sai