BA Boeing Co

By Benjamin Katz and Andrew Tangel 

LONDON -- Boeing Co. needs to resolve a new software glitch as part of its work to get the 737 MAX recertified for flight, the head of the Federal Aviation Administration said.

The plane maker discovered an issue that affects a warning light associated with a mechanism on the tail that moves the plane's nose up and down, FAA chief Stephen Dickson told reporters in London on Thursday.

It is the latest in a series of technical issues that have come up during efforts to get the aircraft recertified. The MAX has been grounded globally since March 2019, following the second of two fatal crashes that together killed 346 people. Boeing halted production of the aircraft in January after several delays to the recertification timeline.

Mr. Dickson said the latest matter will need to be resolved before Boeing can proceed to a certification flight, the next major milestone in efforts to get the aircraft back into service. That test is expected to take place in the next few weeks, Mr. Dickson said, depending on Boeing's ability to resolve the issue with the warning light.

Boeing confirmed the problem with the indicator light and said it didn't expect a fix would upend its latest forecast for U.S. regulators to approve the MAX for commercial service by the middle of this year.

A Boeing spokesman said the problem emerged during testing of the aircraft's latest software update. He said the alert's unintended illumination stemmed from differing input data between the plane's two flight-control computers, which will work in unison as part of a previously planned fix to the system.

"We are incorporating a change to the 737 MAX software prior to the fleet returning to service to ensure that this indicator light only illuminates as intended," the spokesman said. Boeing said it notified the FAA of the problem during the week of Jan. 20.

The spokesman said Boeing had completed its work to fix another glitch Mr. Dickson mentioned on Thursday, related to the powering up of the MAX flight-control computers.

Boeing has yet to present fixes for a separate, previously reported wiring issue, Mr. Dickson said, adding that the issue doesn't necessarily need to be resolved for the certification flight to proceed.

The FAA and European Union Aviation Safety Agency had disagreed on whether the wiring needs to be fixed before the aircraft can return to service, The Wall Street Journal reported. Mr. Dickson said the FAA and EASA were closely aligned on the MAX certification process.

Write to Benjamin Katz at ben.katz@wsj.com and Andrew Tangel at Andrew.Tangel@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 06, 2020 15:26 ET (20:26 GMT)

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