Boeing Says Expanding Anonymous Reporting On Safety Issues After 737 MAX Crashes

WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd October, 2019) US aircraft producer Boeing said in a statement on Tuesday that it has taken various actions to return its 737 MAX aircraft to service, including expanding anonymous reporting by its staff on issues concerning flight safety.

"Boeing has made significant progress over the past several months in support of safely returning the 737 MAX to service," the statement said. "We are expanding the use of our anonymous reporting system to encourage employees to keep bringing forward potential safety issues."

Earlier this month, the Federal Aviation Administration, along with various other US agencies and nine international regulators, released a report that faulted Boeing for not adequately explaining how the 737 MAX's Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation Software (MCAS) system operates.

Lack of knowledge of how MCAS operates was suspected of being the cause of the two crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed 346 people.

The FAA has taken Boeing to task for withholding internal communications among its staff on potential MCAS malfunction and the ways for pilots to address it.

Boeing said in the statement the company worked with the FAA and other global regulators on the process laid out for certifying the MCAS software and related training updates.

"We updated the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation Software (MCAS) on the MAX by adding three additional layers of protection that will prevent accidents like these from ever happening again," Boeing said. "To date, we have conducted more than 800 test and production flights with the updated software, totaling more than 1,500 hours."

In each of the two 737 MAX crashes, pilots struggled to take control of the jet as a single damaged sensor sent the plane into an irrecoverable nose-dive. Regulators around the world grounded the 737 MAX after the second crash.

Boeing said it is making steady progress on the second software update announced in June for additional flight control computer redundancy.

"Some 445 participants from more than 140 customers and regulators around the globe, including the FAA, have participated in simulator sessions to experience the proposed MCAS software update," Boeing said.

Just last week, the company successfully conducted a dry-run of a certification flight test, Boeing added.