The United States will not clear Boeing 737 Max jets for flight again until federal officials are satisfied that Boeing has fixed its flawed flight control system, Transportation Secretary Elaine L. Chao said in testimony on Wednesday. Chao, appearing before House subcommittee hearings concerning her department’s budget, offered no timeline for the plane to return to service after the FAA’s decision to ground the jets on March 13. But she said Boeing appeared close to completing a software upgrade on a crucial sensor believed to have played a role in the crashes of two Max jets. An Ethiopian Airlines flight crashed shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa on March 10, killing 157, and a Lion Air 737 Max crashed last October, killing all 189 people on board. “The FAA will not approve Boeing’s proposed changes until the FAA is satisfied it is safe,” said Chao, who has come under fire for her department’s actions after the Lion Air disaster. Chao, reading from prepared answers at times, defended the FAA’s decision not to follow the lead of 40 other countries by immediately grounding the fleet, despite the possibility that the Ethiopia crash might have resulted from a flaw in a plane whose basic design dates to the 1960s. “The FAA saw no basis upon which to ground these planes,” she said. “It is a very technical organisation. It is very data-driven. They saw no data until the morning of Wednesday the 13th.” It was at that time, she added, that FAA investigators discovered “new information on the first three minutes of the Ethiopian” flight that revealed “parallel conditions” involving the two accidents. Chao’s critics have argued that she could have exerted greater pressure on FAA officials and avoided the appearance that she was endorsing the aircraft’s airworthiness.<br/>
general
The US FAA expects to award the first licence to operate a drone airline in the next month, an official at the regulator said Wednesday. The agency decided last year that large-scale commercial package delivery operations by drones would need to meet the same safety and economic certification standards as other licensed US airlines. “In the next month we expect to announce we will have our first ... air carrier certificate for operating a drone airline,” FAA Office of Unmanned Aircraft System Integration Executive Director Jay Merkle said. “That is a major accomplishment for us and our partner.” He declined to name the partner, but to date, the only air carrier certificate application for a drone carrier listed on a US government website has come from Wing Aviation, a subsidiary of Google’s parent, Alphabet. FAA documents associated with the application said Wing Aviation was proposing to conduct package deliveries using small fixed-wing drones in a rural area of the US. “Operations enabled by this exemption will be the first of their kind – a convergence of prior experience the FAA has with both small UAS operations and air carrier operations,” the FAA said, in reference to unmanned aircraft systems. The regulator said granting approvals would be in the public interest, in a document dated April 2. FAA acting administrator Dan Elwell said Wing had already conducted successful trials of its delivery service in Virginia.<br/>
Boeing has held a meeting with Chinese airlines in Shanghai to demonstrate a revamped version of the flight control system at the centre of two fatal crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia in the past six months. The demonstration was held at Boeing’s training base in Shanghai, with pilots from Chinese airlines using a flight simulator of the 737 Max jet involved in the crashes, according to a company spokesman. A similar demonstration flight was held in Seattle in March and a third is planned for Europe. It was the first time the plane manufacturer has held a training meeting of this size, the spokesman said, citing the importance of the Chinese market for the US company. Analysts have stressed China’s central role in the global aviation industry and the need for Boeing to convince local airlines and the country’s regulator of the 737 Max’s airworthiness. The system on display this week in Shanghai, called the manoeuvring characteristics augmentation system, is meant to prevent the plane from stalling but has been implicated as the cause for the accidents.<br/>
Rolls-Royce has agreed to an early inspection of some Trent 1000 TEN engines by regulatory authorities, a week after SIA grounded two Boeing Co 787-10 jets fitted with the units. The latest version of the Trent engine has been dogged by problems since entering service at the end of 2017. According to Rolls-Royce, by late February 35 787s had been grounded globally due to engine blades corroding or cracking prematurely. “This blade deterioration is a known issue but it is occurring faster than we expected on some engines,” Chris Cholerton, Rolls-Royce President for Civil Aerospace, said on Wednesday. The accelerated inspection regime will allow Rolls-Royce to confirm the health of the more than 180 engines in service over the next few months. Singapore Airlines grounded its two jets last week after engine checks showed premature blade deterioration. Jefferies analysts said the affected engines were being operated on routes to Japan, Korea and Thailand, meaning they had a relatively high take-off and landing cycle.<br/>
The transport ministry said Tuesday it will mandate Breathalyzer tests for all flight attendants, engineers and flight operations managers after loosely imposed drinking regulations came under fire for a series of alcohol-related problems at Japanese airlines. Drinking rules for pilots will be applied to flight attendants, prohibiting them from consuming alcohol within eight hours of their flight duties, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism said. Further alcohol tests while on duty will also be mandatory, the ministry said, and they are to be relieved of duty if even a very low level of alcohol is detected. While the ministry decided to tighten alcohol regulations for pilots following a string of drinking issues at carriers, it had been considering introducing drinking restrictions on other personnel. Engineers inspecting aircraft before departure will be subject to the new regulations, while those undertaking hanger work, such as overhauling planes, will be exempted, it said.<br/>
The Albanian government ordered troops to guard the country's international airport and criticised the Chinese company that runs the facility on Wednesday, a day after armed robbers seized bags of cash that were about to be loaded onto a plane. The government would "no longer allow the security of citizens and the country's image to suffer", Defence Minister Olta Xhacka said of Tuesday's robbery, which was the second time in three years the Tirana airport has been targeted in a heist. She joined Interior Minister Sander Lleshaj in accusing Tirana International Airport (TIA), run by financial firm China Everbright Limited (CEL), of "persistent irresponsibility". "I have ordered members of the military police and the troops of the special army unit to be stationed along the security fence of the 'Mother Teresa' airport," Xhacka said. CEL rejected Lleshaj's allegations of negligence, including that it had failed to notify the police of the break-in. The company said it had stepped up security measures since a similar robbery at the airport in June 2016.<br/>