US watchdog mulls Boeing penalty over 737 Max software glitch
Federal Aviation Administration investigates planemaker’s failure to disclose an inoperative warning light, which caused two aircraft to crash
Washington — Boeing engineers discovered in 2017 that a software glitch had rendered a warning light on the newly introduced 737 Max inoperable on 80% of the planes. But the company chose not to fix it or to inform US regulators.
The next year, a Lion Air jet suffered the malfunction the alert was designed to detect and crashed in the Java Sea. The lack of an alert was cited as a factor in the crash by Indonesian investigators and Boeing’s failure to fix it drew stiff condemnation from legislators and families of the victims. Now the inoperable warning light is threatening to become a costly new headache for the planemaker: its absence on the jet violated US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations. The FAA is considering imposing civil penalties, according to documents and officials, which can amount to millions of dollars. “A manufacturer cannot alter the aeroplane’s features after it has been certified,” the then-acting head of the FAA, Daniel Elwell, said in a le...
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