A review by a US FAA panel into Boeing’s grounded 737 MAX aircraft found a planned software update and training revisions to be "operationally suitable," the agency said Tuesday, an important milestone in getting the planes back in the air. Boeing had announced a planned software update on the 737 MAX to prevent erroneous data from triggering an anti-stall system known as MCAS that is under scrutiny following 2 disastrous nose-down crashes. The draft report from the Flight Standardisation Board appointed by the FAA, which includes pilots, engineers and other experts, said additional training was needed for MCAS, but not required to be done in a simulator. The board said ground training "must address system description, functionality, associated failure conditions, and flight crew alerting." <br/>
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Proposed legislation in the US Senate would require Customs and Border Protection to hire at least 600 additional officers each year until the agency’s staffing needs were completely met. The bipartisan Securing America’s Ports of Entry Act aims to alleviate an estimated shortage of almost 4,000 CBP officers nationwide. That shortage was further exacerbated by the announcement last week from the Department of Homeland Security authorising the voluntary reassignment of more than 2,000 officers from ports of entry--including US airports--to the southwestern border. “This legislation is an important step towards ensuring CBP has sufficient staffing to both address lengthy passenger wait times and open new air service opportunities in communities around the country,” the Airports Council International-North America said. <br/>
A panel of experts has proposed a set of measures it believes would help improve the efficiency of Europe’s air traffic control system. Europe has been trying to move away from ATC boundaries based on those of individual states and towards a smaller number of larger functional airspace blocks as part of the Single European Sky project. But progress has been slow. The panel of experts, formally known as the European Commission Wise Persons Group on European Air Traffic Control reform, published a series of recommendations April15, split into short- and long-term measures. One of the first airlines to respond to the panel’s report was Ryanair, which has been a long-time critic of Europe’s ATC performance. The carrier called on European govts and the EC to implement the panel’s recommendations swiftly. <br/>
China's aviation regulator said Tuesday that it had set up a task force to review design changes to the Boeing 737 MAX that had been submitted by the planemaker after the fleet was grounded last month. The CAAC has reverted to Boeing and the US FAA on issues regarding the aircraft's airworthiness and is waiting for their response, the Chinese regulator said. China was the first country to ground the newest version of Boeing's workhorse 737 model last month following a deadly Ethiopian Airlines crash March 10. Boeing filed an application March 15 through the FAA to obtain an airworthiness certificate from CAAC, the Chinese regulator said. CAAC said it had since set up a task force to review changes submitted by Boeing in accordance with a bilateral agreement between the US and China. <br/>