Boeing is regaining the ability to sign off on the safety of some of its planes, a responsibility federal regulators had taken away from the company in recent years after two fatal crashes of the 737 Max and quality concerns about the 787 Dreamliner.
Starting on Monday, the Federal Aviation Administration will allow Boeing to issue airworthiness certificates for both jets. The certificates serve as a stamp of approval affirming that each new plane is designed to approved specifications and is safe to fly. The F.A.A. said that it and Boeing would alternate issuing the certificates on a weekly basis.
“Safety drives everything we do, and the F.A.A. will only allow this step forward because we are confident it can be done safely,” the agency said in a statement on Friday. “This decision follows a thorough review of Boeing’s ongoing production quality and will allow our inspectors to focus additional surveillance in the production process.”
The move is a significant step for Boeing, which has suffered a string self-inflicted setbacks in recent years, starting with the crashes of the 737 Max in Indonesia in 2018 and Ethiopia in 2019, which together killed 346 people.
In 2019, the F.A.A. stripped Boeing of the authority to issue airworthiness certificates for that plane, its most popular commercial jet. The Max was also banned globally for nearly two years. Three years later, the agency also revoked the company’s ability to issue certificates for the Dreamliner because of quality concerns. Boeing’s safety record was further marred last year when a panel blew off a 737 Max during an Alaska Airlines flight near Portland, Ore.
The F.A.A. has long delegated some of its responsibilities to employees at Boeing and other aerospace companies. The practice was widely criticized after the Max crashes, but industry experts said that Congress had not provided the agency with enough money and resources to do all that work itself.
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