Families of the passengers who died in one of the Boeing 737 Max crashes lobbied Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao on Tuesday to slow what they consider a rush to let the plane fly again. Two of the relatives who took part in the two-hour meeting in Washington said Chao promised that the government will take as long as necessary to ensure that the plane is safe but stopped short of agreeing to an entirely new, top-to-bottom review. A spokesman for Chao said the department and the FAA have taken unprecedented steps to understand the accidents and the FAA's certification of the plane in 2017. One of those steps, he said, included Chao's appointment of a special committee to review the FAA's process of certifying planes. After the meeting, several dozen relatives held a vigil on the steps of the DoT headquarters to mark the six-month anniversary of the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302. They carried pictures of many of the 157 people who died. Another 189 died in the October 2018 crash of a Max jet operated by Indonesia's Lion Air. A group of 11 family members asked Chao to direct the FAA to conduct a completely new review of the Max instead of mainly examining changes Boeing made to flight-control software called MCAS, which was implicated in both crashes. FAA is part of her department. Chao did not commit to full re-certification but said the FAA will wait for recommendations from a technical review board before it lets the plane fly, according to a department spokesman. The department is also being advised by a review panel that includes international regulators and by the special committee that Chao appointed, but the FAA won't wait for those reports before deciding whether to approve the Max for flight, the spokesman said.<br/>
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Europe’s aviation regulator will send its own test pilots and engineers to fly forthcoming certification flight tests of Boeing’s newly modified 737 MAX, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) said Tuesday. In addition, EASA said it favours a design that takes readings from three independent Angle of Attack sensors rather than the two-sensor system in Boeing’s proposed upgrade to the MAX. The European agency’s stance underscores how badly the two deadly MAX crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia have disrupted the harmony in international aviation that previously granted primacy to the US FAA. In little-noted comments at the European Parliament last week, the French executive director of EASA, Patrick Ky, had pointed words for his American counterparts. “The FAA is in a very difficult situation,” said Ky. “When they will say, this (airplane) is good to go, it’s very likely that international authorities will want a second opinion, or a third opinion. That was not the case one year ago. I think that’s going to be a very strong change in the overall worldwide hierarchy or relationship between the different authorities.” Although EASA said it’s not mandating how Boeing must address its concern over the Angle of Attack system redesign, Tuesday’s declaration that it would prefer a three-sensor system was a more specific critique than that laid out in Ky’s slide presentation last week, which said Boeing had “still no appropriate response to Angle of Attack integrity issues.”<br/>
International airlines are pinning their hopes on a change of government in Venezuela before some $4b owned to the firms by the state might be repaid, a top executive with the IATA said Tuesday. Venezuela has suffered a severe economic and political crisis over the past several years, including wide-spread shortages of basic goods and soaring inflation, which has also caused debts owed to the airlines to pile up. Due in large part to strict currency controls in place since 2003, the government of President Nicolas Maduro has for years failed to reimburse the airlines in hard currency for ticket sales in local currency. "Right now, recovering this money is a lost cause," said Peter Cerda, IATA's regional vice president for the Americas, on the sidelines of the Aviation Day industry forum held in Panama City. "We hope that in the future, when there's a change of administration, it allows us to have a dialogue about recovering that money," he added. Cerda added that IATA, which represents some 240 airline companies, has not had any talks with Maduro's government in two years. As Venezuela's economy has continued to shrink, airlines like Delta, Lufthansa and LATAM Airlines have cut their service to the South American country. Other carriers like Air Canada and American Airlines stopped their flights in and out of Venezuela citing security concerns. "There isn't much chance the companies will return... The government still owes the industry and until this is fixed it's difficult to expect any improvements," said Cerda.<br/>
After problems caused by a two-day BA strike, London Heathrow is set to be plunged into further chaos this week, with climate crisis protesters planning to disrupt Europe's busiest airport on Friday. Activists from Heathrow Pause, an extension of the Extinction Rebellion movement that brought central London to a standstill earlier in 2019, plan to fly drones within Heathrow's five kilometer exclusion zone, starting at 3 a.m. -- three hours before scheduled flights begin. They say they'll fly at "regular intervals throughout the day," in a bid to ensure that no aircraft will be able to take off or land all day. Activists will give an hour's warning before each flight, and no drone will encroach on flight paths. On average, 1,200 flights pass through Heathrow every day. If the protest takes place, it's likely to cause major problems for an airport that will only just be recovering from the effects of the recent airline strike. Potentially adding to the chaos, several airlines operating in and out of Heathrow have said that the airport has yet to brief them on the situation, despite claims to the contrary. For passengers, it could mean more misery -- and they're unlikely to be eligible for any compensation if their flights are delayed or canceled, according to UK consumer group Which?. Heathrow has vowed to keep the airfield open, using drone detection and "dynamic risk assessment programs." But UK law enacted in March 2019 states that any drone flying within 5km of an airport risks endangering aircraft.<br/>
FAA is proposing inspections and replacement of certain Pratt & Whitney geared turbofan oil system components to eliminate an issue linked to at least two inflight shutdowns. The draft notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM), published Sept. 10, covers PW1500Gs and PW1900G that power Airbus A220s and Embraer E-Jet E190 E2s/E195 E2s, respectively. FAA proposes initial and repetitive inspections of the gap between each engine’s oil supply tube and the fuel oil cooler (FOC). Initial checks would be required within 300 cycles of the mandate’s effective date, while follow-up inspections would be done every 850 cycles. In addition, operators would be required to swap the supply tube and FOC for new parts at the next shop visit, per Pratt & Whitney’s service guidance. “This [proposed directive] was prompted by reports of two inflight shutdowns due to oil leaking from the connection between the LP10 oil supply tube and the” FOC, FAA said. Pratt issued service bulletins on the issue in January and March. The draft directive does not provide details on the incidents. Aviation Safety Network’s (ASN’s) database includes two A220 inflight shutdowns linked to low oil pressure.<br/>
Boeing handed over around a quarter as many planes in August as it did a year ago, pushing total deliveries so far this year down more than 40%, as the worldwide grounding of its best-selling 737 MAX jet enters its seventh month. Regular monthly numbers from the US planemaker showed it delivered 18 aircraft in August, down from 64 in the same period, a year ago. In the eight months through August, deliveries totalled 276 aircraft, compared with 481 last year. Chicago-based Boeing has not delivered any of its 737 MAX aircraft since the single-aisle plane was grounded worldwide in March after two fatal crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. US airlines have removed the grounded jet from their flight schedules until December or early next year. The planemaker has said it expects to receive certification from the FAA by October to put the jets back in the air. Boeing is still playing catch up with European rival Airbus, which remains ahead with combined deliveries of 500 aircraft for the first eight months of 2019. Airbus delivered 207 of its A320neo jets, which competes with the 737 MAX. Net orders after cancellations were a negative 85 aircraft so far this year for Boeing, compared with 95 for Airbus.<br/>