American Airlines has taken the grounded Boeing 737 Max out of its schedule until 5 March 2020. The announcement comes following Southwest Airlines' statement earlier in the day that it too would delay scheduling the aircraft until early March. The Dallas-based carrier had previously said that it expected the aircraft to return to service in January. It now anticipates cancelling "approximately 140 flights" per day through 4 March. The new March date is also just days short of the anniversary of the second of two 737 Max crashes which left the aircraft type grounded worldwide. The plane's Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) automated flight controls were linked to the fatal crashes of Indonesia's Lion Air 610 on 29 October 2018 and Ethiopian Airlines 302 on 10 March 2019. 08 NOVEMBER, 2019 SOURCE: FLIGHTGLOBAL.COM BY: PILAR WOLFSTELLER SAN FRANCISCO
American Airlines has taken the grounded Boeing 737 Max out of its schedule until 5 March 2020. The announcement comes following Southwest Airlines' statement earlier in the day that it too would delay scheduling the aircraft until early March.

The Dallas-based carrier had previously said that it expected the aircraft to return to service in January. It now anticipates cancelling "approximately 140 flights" per day through 4 March.

The new March date is also just days short of the anniversary of the second of two 737 Max crashes which left the aircraft type grounded worldwide. The plane's Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) automated flight controls were linked to the fatal crashes of Indonesia's Lion Air 610 on 29 October 2018 and Ethiopian Airlines 302 on 10 March 2019.

“American Airlines remains in continuous contact with the Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation and Boeing,” the airline says in a statement published on its website on 8 November. “Based on the latest guidance, American anticipates that the resumption of scheduled commercial service on American's fleet of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft will occur March 5, 2020. Once the aircraft is certified, American expects to run exhibition flights, or flights for American team members and invited guests only, prior to March 5.”

Source: FlightGlobal

Cockpit-voice recordings from a Boeing 727-200 which landed with its nose-gear retracted in Alabama captured the captain admitting that he should have executed a go-around, after an unsafe gear warning and automated 'pull up' alerts.
As the Kalitta Charters II aircraft (N720CK) descended towards Tuscaloosa, on 28 January this year, the captain called for a 'flap 15' configuration and deployment of the landing-gear. In preliminary findings the US National Transportation Safety Board says the airline's 727 operating manual cautions that simultaneous operation of the flaps and landing-gear causes a "large volume demand" on the hydraulic system, and that – with engines near idle – there may be a shortfall of system pressure.As a result of this dip from normal pressure, it says, the hydraulic system might not be able to unlock the nose-gear. The inquiry says a gear-warning horn sounded and was acknowledged by the crew, and the cockpit-voice recorder also picked up multiple 'sink rate' and 'pull up' warnings. But the captain appears to have ignored the warnings, reportedly stating that the aircraft had a history of microswitch problems. When the first officer asked whether the captain was intending to execute a go-around, the captain responded: "I'm gonna go…I got it, I got it." The 727 landed on runway 4 with its nose-gear retracted. After the aircraft came to a halt the captain, apparently referring to the nose-gear, said: "It wasn't down." "Shoulda gone around," the first officer replied, to which the captain responded: "Yeah, shoulda." The captain, during an interview, said he had asked for the landing-gear to be recycled and that he had smelled smoke and did not want to delay the landing. "Neither the first officer, flight engineer or non-revenue mechanic reported these items," says the inquiry. "Nor were any of these items audible on the [cockpit recorder]." The flight engineer stated that he had recommended that the gear be recycled, but that the captain declined, while the first officer stated that he recommended a go-around to troubleshoot the problems, which the captain also declined. On the day before the accident a different crew, also arriving at Tuscaloosa, had similarly experienced an indication that the nose-gear had not deployed. The crew sought vectoring to delay the arrival and ran through the abnormal situations checklist, swapping a bulb on the gear indicator without result before recycling the landing-gear. The indication subsequently changed, showing the nose-gear down and locked, but the event was not written up in the maintenance log after the jet landed. Its captain said the problem might have been created by the simultaneous deployment of landing-gear and flaps, at low thrust, and said he had informed the captain of the accident flight of the gear indication issues.

Source: FlightGlobal

United Airlines will offer alternative flights to any passengers uncomfortable with flying on the Boeing 737 Max once the narrowbody returns to the skies. “We are going to make it very transparent to our customers [that their trip is on a Max],” chief executive Oscar Munoz said at an Aviation Club luncheon in London today. “If they are not happy, we will offer to rebook them, even if they take that decision at the gate.” He adds: “We don’t assume everybody will jump back on the aircraft.” United has been unable to operate its 14 Max 9 aircraft since the US Federal Aviation Administration and other regulators grounded the type in March following two fatal crashes. Munoz, who adds that the airline is “not in any particular hurry” to bring the re-engined narrowbody back to service, reiterated his pledge to fly on the first United Max service following re-certification, acknowledging that the grounding has damaged customer perceptions of the Max brand. United was due to increase its fleet of Max aircraft to 30 by the end of this year, with another 28 due in 2020. In his speech to the Aviation Club, Munoz outlined some of the factors behind what he called the airline’s “turnaround” since he joined in 2015. These included “regaining the trust of our employees”, partly by settling long-running labour disputes; adding routes, including 93 cities last year alone; improving customer care by giving cabin crew devices to instantly record any passenger grievance; and increasing capacity to “mid-continent” secondary airports using Bombardier CRJ550s, a 50-seat derivative of the CRJ700 with a business class cabin, operated by its United Express partner GoJet Airlines. Munoz admitted that there had been “missteps on the journey”, including a controversial incident in 2017 when a ticketed passenger was dragged violently from an aircraft following a dispute over seating, leading to calls for the chief executive to resign.

Source: FlightGlobal