LONDON – The tension between Boeing and its stakeholders continues as the manufacturer had to advise groundings of up to 60 737 MAX aircraft due to electrical flaws in the aircraft.
According to The Seattle Times, this was due to “a minor change” in the “manufacturing process that was insufficiently vetted”, which ultimately caused an electrical system problem.
The component itself looks to be on a backup electrical power control unit, which wasn’t secured with rivets, like it normally is, causing the unit to “not provide a complete electrical grounding path to the unit”.
Boeing was quick to comment on this issue saying it discovered such a problem “on a production airplane during normal build activity”, and that such parts are going to require further inspection.
From there, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recommended the grounding of up to 60 units that are in service already, out of the near 200 total brought back into service following the MCAS crisis which killed 346 people across Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and Lion Air Flight 610.
That being said, it appears such issues are on certain airframes only, as Southwest Airlines have 28 MAXs in the air, with United having 14 and American 24.
It is also unclear when the aircraft will be allowed back in the skies again, with those affected saying it is too early to give such estimates.
