The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced it has certified the Boeing 737 MAX 7, a long-awaited milestone for the smallest aircraft in Boeing's MAX family. The plane was unveiled in March 2018 and was originally due to enter service the following year, but Boeing now expects its first deliveries only in 2027.
In a statement, the FAA said the certification reflected years of sustained work to resolve complex technical issues and to complete a thorough review of the aircraft's design along with the accompanying safety analyses. The agency said the process had taken nearly a decade.
Nearly seven years of waiting
The decision ends almost seven years of waiting for Boeing and marks a key step in the commercial development of the 737 MAX 7 after a lengthy regulatory review. The aircraft required a new angle of attack sensor, a component whose defect contributed to two 737 MAX 8 crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people. Boeing has acknowledged that its MCAS anti-stall software was also a factor in those accidents.
The 737 MAX is Boeing's best-selling narrow-body jet family, and the MAX 8 crashes led to a worldwide grounding of the fleet for nearly two years while regulators and the manufacturer reworked its flight control systems.
FAA keeps tighter oversight
The certification comes as the FAA maintains heightened scrutiny of Boeing under stepped-up oversight of the manufacturer's production and certification procedures. Boeing said in mid-July that the 737 MAX 7 had logged 686 hours of testing across 441 flights during its certification process, along with 349 hours of ground testing.
More problems and certifications ahead
Boeing's dealings with the U.S. regulator are not over. On Monday, July 28, the FAA revealed that seats on more than 400 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft registered in the United States pose injury risks to passengers. Inspections are expected to be carried out to address the problem.
Boeing is now hoping that certification of the 737 MAX 10, the largest member of the MAX family, will follow quickly so that deliveries of that model can also begin next year. The manufacturer's biggest remaining challenge is certification of its large twin-engine 777-9, whose deliveries are promised sometime in 2027, seven years behind the original schedule.
