US lawmakers set to back Boeing 737 Max certification extension

Boeing is set to win backing from Congress for an extension of a looming deadline imposing a new safety standard for modern cockpit alerts for two new versions of the US plane maker’s best-selling 737 Max aircraft, sources told Reuters. The Chicago-based company has been intensely lobbying for months to convince lawmakers to waive the Dec. 27 deadline that affects its Max 7 and Max 10 airplanes that was imposed by Congress in 2020 after two fatal 737 Max crashes killed 346 people in Indonesia and Ethiopia. Congressional leaders have agreed to attach the extension to a bill to fund US government operations and to require new safety enhancements for existing Max aircraft proposed by US Senator Maria Cantwell, chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, the sources said. That massive spending bill still must be passed in the coming days. Cantwell proposed requiring retrofitting existing Max airplanes with an “enhanced angle of attack and a means to shut off stall warnings and overspeed alerts, for all Max aircraft,” Reuters reported on Nov. 30. Faulty data from a single sensor that erroneously triggered a software function called MCAS to repeatedly activate played critical roles in the fatal 737 Max crashes. The FAA in 2020 required Boeing to retrofit planes to ensure MCAS could activate only if it received data from two AOA sensors. Boeing declined to comment, but Boeing Commercial Airplanes CE Stan Deal said last week the planemaker supported Cantwell’s safety retrofit proposal.<br/>