Boeing plans to suspend production on its 737 Max jetliner in January as the company handles fallout over two deadly crashes that defects in the plane’s anti-stalling system contributed to.
President Trump grounded the plane in March after the second crash. Since then, Boeing has continued to build roughly 40 planes a month at its Washington state factory, according to the Wall Street Journal. The United States’ largest manufacturing exporter now has a backlog of about 400 737 Max planes.
Boeing executives are trying to secure approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to put the commercial jet back in service. Officials expect the plane to remain grounded until at least February.
Design flaws in the Max contributed to two fatal crashes that took place within five months of each other. On Oct. 29, 2018, a Lion Air crash in Indonesia killed 189 people. An Ethiopian Airlines crash later killed 157 people on March 10, 2019.
The plane’s anti-stalling system possessed a defect that caused the system to automatically engage anti-stalling measures just after takeoff when the aircraft was close to the ground. To combat a stall, the plane’s computer would tip the nose down to regain airspeed. In both accidents, the defect contributed to the planes crashing into the ground soon after takeoff.
