It appears EASA has put their foot down pretty hard
Europe’s aviation safety agency has set out strict conditions before it will allow Boeing’s 737 Max aircraft back into the skies, in a sign of the depth of the rift emerging among global regulators after two deadly crashes.
EASA said it had three “pre-requisite conditions”, including demands that design changes by Boeing are approved by the European agency, before it would lift the grounding of the Max following the crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia.
News of the conditions will heap further pressure on the US safety regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), ahead of a meeting of global regulators in Texas on Thursday to review Boeing’s application to get the Max back in the air.
The conditions are: that any design changes by Boeing are EASA approved and mandated; that an additional independent design review being conducted by the agency is completed; and that Max flight crews “have been adequately trained”.
“We are working on having the 737 Max 8 return to service as soon as possible, but only once there is complete reassurance that it is safe,” a spokesman told the Financial Times.
Patrick Ky, EASA’s executive director, said in March the agency would make its own study of the Max’s safety and would not allow the plane to resume service until it was satisfied, irrespective of what the FAA decided.
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EASA will also continue to analyse any new information that emerges about the two crashes in which 346 people died in Ethiopia in March and Indonesia in October.
The agency has communicated its conditions to both Boeing and the FAA, the spokesman added.
It is not unprecedented for EASA to conduct its own safety review, but it is unusual and underlines the splintering among regulators following the Max crashes.