The Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday gave Boeing approval to begin flight tests of its 737 MAX 10 jet with FAA pilots on board. This is an important step that allows the FAA to collect flight data for aircraft certification.
In an internal message to employees, Mike Fleming, the Boeing vice president who leads commercial aircraft development programs, celebrated progress in an unprecedentedly slow process that still has a long way to go.
“This is a significant milestone as we work to certify the 737-10, the largest aircraft in the 737 MAX family, for passenger service with operators around the world,” Fleming wrote.
Fleming’s statement notes that Boeing test pilots have already completed more than 400 flights and nearly 1,000 flight hours on the MAX 10 and the jet “performed well.”
However, the flights and data collected only count toward certification if FAA pilots are on board to conduct the tests.
FAA approval for the final two models of the 737 MAX jet family — the smallest, the MAX 7, and the largest, the MAX 10 — to carry passengers has been long delayed due to safety concerns following the two by Congress MAX crashes that killed 346 people.
The first MAX models, MAX 8 and MAX 9, were already certified and in service when the MAX 7 flew for the first time in March 2018. The MAX 10 had its first flight in June 2021.
Before the crashes, formal certification granting clearance to airline passengers would typically have been expected within a year of these milestones.
But crashes in October 2018 and March 2019 brought the MAX to a halt worldwide and suspended the certification process, which was then further derailed by the global pandemic in 2020.
Both the MAX 7 and MAX 10 models then faced new testing requirements after Congress passed the Aircraft Certification, Safety and Accountability Act in the final days of 2020 to improve oversight.
This legislation introduced rigorous new testing into the FAA certification process. Boeing must demonstrate that its aircraft systems are safe under a variety of pilot responses to emergencies.
Documenting all inexperienced pilots’ reactions to every possible error and proving that the system is still safe has slowed the process significantly.
The MAX 7 was the first aircraft to undergo this new test regime. All FAA flight testing was completed in 2021. The FAA is currently reviewing final documents and Boeing hopes the agency will certify the aircraft by the end of the year or early 2024.
Since Boeing knows exactly what is required for the MAX 7, certification of the MAX 10 should happen faster. Still, it will be slower than was usual before the crashes.
The MAX 10 is still not expected to be certified before the end of 2024. Industry sources told Aviation Week trade magazine in October that it likely won’t enter service with airlines until 2025.
The painstaking certification process for these final two MAX models would have taken even longer had Congress not granted these two aircraft a specific exemption from a requirement in the 2020 legislation.
In late 2022, Congress passed an amendment that allows the MAX 7 and MAX 10 to be certified without having to install a state-of-the-art system that alerts the crew if something goes wrong during flight.
Adding a full modern crew warning system to the last two models of this aircraft – the original 737 was developed more than 50 years ago – was considered too expensive and possibly less safe because it represented a difference from the first two MAX models.
As a compromise, the 2022 amendment requires Boeing to make two major updates to the MAX 10’s crew alert system and retrofit them to all MAX models within three years of the MAX 10 entering service.
Tuesday’s FAA release brings that goal one step closer.