The 737 MAX 7 needs to be certified by December 2022, but the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) informed Boeing that such safety tasks have not yet been finished.
The FAA expressed reservations “about realistic timeframes for receiving the remaining documents” necessary to certify the aircraft,” according to a letter from the FAA dated September 19, 2022, that was obtained by Reuters.
For the aircraft to be certified by December, the authority had pushed Boeing to deliver the required system safety assessments (SSAs) by mid-September. The manufacturer, however, missed the deadline for submission.
“Just under 10% of the SSAs [system safety assessments, ed.-] have been accepted by the FAA and another 70% of these documents are in various stages of review and revision,” the FAA said in the letter.
“The most concerning, however, is that Boeing has yet to provide an initial submittal for six of the outstanding SSAs,” the FAA added, outlining that it will take time for the authority to review crucial safety-related documents.
The smallest aircraft in the MAX family, the 737 MAX 7 and MAX 10, currently have until December 31, 2022, to receive FAA clearance.
The new Aircraft Certification, Safety and Accountability Act (ACSAA), which will go into effect on January 1, 2023, will add extra safety criteria if the manufacturer misses the deadline, in which case both models will need to be fitted with a modernized flight crew alerting system.
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