The Civil Aviation Authority of Macau (AACM) announced in a statement yesterday that it has accepted the resumption of flights by B737 MAX aircraft on Monday after it was determined that conditions for its return to service were met.
The AACM statement said that two accidents involving the aircraft took place in 2018 and 2019 respectively. According to Wikipedia, the crashes involved Indonesia’s Lion Air Flight 610 in 2018 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in 2019, which altogether claimed the lives of 346 people.
The statement underlined that this led the AACM to suspend the approval of flight applications for Boeing 737 MAX 8 and MAX 9 by any airlines from March 13 2019. With similar measures taken by other aeronautical regulators, the aircraft’s operations were suspended worldwide.
The statement pointed out that the resumption of the flight applications for the aircraft’s services were approved upon reviewing the Boeing Company’s “mitigating actions” to improve the systems of the aircraft in “both the airworthiness and the operational aspects”.
Moreover, the “airworthiness directives” published by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) were also analysed, according to the statement.
The Boeing Company worked on modifying the aircraft design and revising crew procedures and flight crew training. The statement underlined that these included “updating of the flight control computer software” and “the revision of the flight crew training programme to ensure that the pilots are well trained for the operations”, among others, the statement added.
To check the effectiveness of the corrective measures taken by the Boeing Company, the statement said that the CAAC, FAA and EASA conducted their validation flight tests for the aircraft to check the efficiency of the Boeing Company’s corrective measures.
The statement noted that the results indicated that the safety issues were cleared, with the three authorities publishing their airworthiness directives approving the aircraft’s return to service.
The overseas aeronautical authorities have also gradually removed the aircraft operation’s suspension.
This July 2016 file photo shows a Boeing 737-8 MAX N8704Q at the Farnborough Airshow in England. – Photo Wikimedia Commons
