25 November,2020 08:19 AM IST | Berlin | Agencies
Workers near a Boeing 737 MAX flight at Renton Airport. Pic/AFP
European regulators on Tuesday took a step closer to letting the Boeing 737 Max fly again, publishing a proposed airworthiness directive that could see the aircraft cleared within weeks after being grounded for nearly two years over deadly crashes.
The publication of the directive by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency opens a 28-day public consultation period after which the agency will review the input and then approve the aircraft for flight.
It said the step signals "its intention to approve the aircraft to return to Europe's skies within a matter of weeks." Regulators around the world grounded the Max in March 2019, after the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines jet. That happened less than five months after another Max flown by Indonesia's Lion Air plunged into the Java Sea. A total of 346 passengers and crew members on both planes were killed.
The move by the EASA, which is based in Cologne, Germany, comes after the US Federal Aviation Administration already cleared the Boeing 737 Max earlier this month.
"I am confident that we have left no stone unturned in our assessment of the aircraft with its changed design approach," said EASA Executive Director Patrick Ky in a statement.
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