WASHINGTON: The US aviation regulator extended the grounding of Boeing 737 MAX 9 airplanes indefinitely and announced it will tighten oversight of Boeing itself after a cabin panel broke off a new jet in mid-flight.
As United Airlines and Alaska Airlines cancelled flights through Tuesday, the Federal Aviation Administration also said it will require another round of inspections before it will consider putting the jets back in service.
Under more stringent supervision, the regulator will audit the Boeing 737 MAX 9 production line and suppliers and consider having an independent entity take over from Boeing certain aspects of certifying the safety of new aircraft that the FAA previously assigned to the planemaker.
The FAA said the continued grounding of 171 planes with the same configuration as the one in the incident was "for the safety of American travellers." The regulator said on Monday the grounding would be lifted once they were inspected.
Alaska Airlines and United Airlines, the two US airlines that use the aircraft involved, have had to cancel hundreds of flights in the last week due to the grounding as a widening crisis engulfed the US planemaker.
Alaska and United on Friday both cancelled all MAX 9 flights through Tuesday and United cancelled some additional flights in the following days.
On Thursday, the FAA announced a formal investigation into the MAX 9, which the FAA said had "significant problems" and noted Boeing's history of production issues.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating if the MAX 9 jet in the Alaska episode was missing or had improperly tightened bolts.
FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said that he sees the MAX 9 problems as a manufacturing issue, not a design problem. Noting years of production problems at Boeing, he said: "Whatever's happening isn't fixing the problem and requires an extensive review. We are becoming increasingly focused on the manufacturing process."
The FAA wants to see "where these breakdowns could happen. Are there not enough quality control checks? Are they not in the right places? Is the order of assembly creating some issues?," he said.
Boeing pledged on Friday to "cooperate fully and transparently with our regulator. We support all actions that strengthen quality and safety and we are taking actions across our production system." — Reuters
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