Pilots Concerned About Boeing’s Response To 737 MAX Safety Issues

Evie Fordham | Politics and Health Care Reporter

American Airlines pilots submitted written comments to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) about their concern that Boeing is not taking adequate steps in new draft training proposals for the 737 MAX, Reuters reported Sunday.

The comments came from American Airlines’ pilot union, the Allied Pilots Association (APA), after Boeing 737 MAX aircraft were grounded in March. The APA wants changes after the deadly Indonesian Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX crashes in the past year. The crashes were five months apart and involved an aircraft anti-stall system called MCAS, reported Reuters.

“We cannot walk by this opportunity noting something could be done better,” Dennis Tajer, an APA spokesman, told The Daily Caller News Foundation in a phone interview Sunday. (RELATED: Confusion In Court As US Heavyweights Fight For Christian Businesswoman’s Release From Kuwaiti Prison)

Boeing is preparing a final software update and training package to fix MCAS after the fatal 737 MAX nosedives. An FAA-appointed board of pilots, engineers and others found pilots only need more computer-based training, not simulator time, to solve the issue, reported Reuters.

“The FAA determined that a Level B training, just computer-based training (CBT), would suffice,” Tajer said. “We recognize that and have asked for that to be deep and multilayered so that the best training from that can come out of it. … Not just audio and a few slides.”

Demonstrators plan to protest outside Boeing’s annual meeting in Chicago on Monday, reported Reuters. Boeing’s earnings plummeted 21 percent in the first three months of 2019 because of the groundings, the airline said, according to CNN.

One hundred fifty-seven people died in the Ethiopian Airlines crash March 10, and 189 people died in the Lion Air crash Oct. 29, 2018.

TheDCNF reached out to Boeing but did not receive a response at the time of publication.

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