Boeing Wrapping Up Flight Testing for 737 Max Software Upgrade

Boeing Co. is wrapping up flight testing for a redesign of anti-stall software that’s linked to two fatal 737 Max crashes, as the U.S. planemaker works to lift a global grounding of its best-selling jetliner.

The company completed the engineering trial of the updated software with technical and engineering leaders on board the aircraft, Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg said in a video message late Wednesday. Up next is the certification flight, he said, as Boeing prepares to submit the final paperwork to the Federal Aviation Administration.
We’re making steady progress toward certification,” Muilenburg said, with a Max aircraft and Boeing Field, an airport south of Seattle, as backdrops. Earlier in the day, he had been a passenger on a demonstration flight, watching the final update to the so-called MCAS software “operating as designed across a range of flight conditions.”


We’re making steady progress on the path to certification for our 737 MAX software update thanks to the work of our Boeing pilots, engineers and technical experts. pic.twitter.com/DIHrhG2OOi— Dennis A. Muilenburg (@BoeingCEO) April 18, 2019

Muilenburg has been stepping up Boeing’s campaign to boost public confidence in the safety of the 737 Max -- and the company’s airplane designs -- after two of the jets crashed within five months, killing 346 people. The Max, which debuted less than two years ago, is the newest version of a single-aisle jetliner family that is Boeing’s biggest source of profit.

In all, Chicago-based Boeing has conducted 120 flights, spending 203 hours in the air testing the new system, Muilenburg said. The campaign has included a 737 Max 7 outfitted with flight-testing instrumentation as well as aircraft that have rolled out of Boeing’s 737 factory south of Seattle with the updated software already installed.

The upgrade is designed to make the anti-stall system less aggressive and prevent the repeated nose-down commands that overwhelmed flight crews for Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines. In addition, MCAS -- it stands for Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System -- would no longer be triggered by a single erroneous sensor reading.

Boeing’s ultimate goal is “to make the 737 Max one of the safest airplanes to ever fly,” Muilenburg said.

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