Boeing has discovered another software problem on the beleaguered 737 Max that will have to be fixed before the airplane returns to the skies, Bloomberg reports. The glitch involves an indicator light for the “stabilizer trim system,” which helps raise and lower the plane’s nose. The light was turning on when it wasn’t supposed to. Boeing is already resolving the problem, and it still expects the 737 Max to resume flying by mid-2020.
According to Bloomberg, Steve Dickson, the head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), told reports in London that a certification flight will occur in the next few weeks and that the FAA is evaluating this latest software issue. Even with FAA approval, it could be a long time before the 737 Max returns to service. In the meantime, Boeing has frozen 737 Max production.
Boeing and the FAA have previously disclosed two other glitches that were discovered during the top-to-bottom review of the plane. In January, Boeing announced that it found a problem in the startup process of the plane’s flight computers, which was serious enough for the company and the FAA to delay a key test flight. That followed a previous flaw in the flight computer discovered last June that the FAA said “could cause the plane to dive in a way that pilots had difficulty recovering from in simulator tests.”
Boeing recently ousted CEO Dennis Muilenburg who oversaw the launch of the 737 Max program. Shortly after he was replaced, the US government released a trove of internal Boeing communications that shed light on how the troubled plane was certified in the first place.
