THE BOEING 737 MAX ROARS BACK INTO THE SKIES

The two accidents involving the Boeing 737 MAX were indicative of the need for review and restructuring of regulatory procedures to remove inherent flaws in the system

- B.K. Pandey

ON MARCH 18, 2019, the Boeing 737 MAX airliner was grounded by all countries across the globe operating this latest version of the most widely used platform. Altogether, there were 387 aircraft being operated the world over by 59 airlines providing 8,600 flights per week. The decision to ground this particular fleet was triggered by the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 operating a Boeing 737 MAX 8. This disaster took place a few minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa airport in Ethiopia in which all 149 passengers and eight crew members on board perished. The aircraft was practically brand new as it had been with the airline for just four months. Before this accident, on October 29, 2018, an Indonesian airline Lion Air Flight 610, a Boeing 737 MAX 8, that took off from Jakarta, crashed into the Java Sea shortly after takeoff. There were 189 lives lost in this accident. This was the first major accident involving a Boeing 737 MAX which is an updated version of the Boeing 737.