FAA CHIEF TESTS CHANGES TO BOEING'S GROUNDED 737 MAX

The head of the Federal Aviation Administration, a former military and airline pilot, said Wednesday that he liked what he saw during a two-hour test flight of Boeing’s revamped 737 Max jetliner, a key step as the agency considers whether to let the plane return to flight after two deadly crashes.

Administrator Stephen Dickson said the FAA is “in the home stretch” of its review of the plane, but he vowed not to take short cuts and declined to set a deadline for a decision.

The FAA said Dickson sat in the captain’s seat during the flight, which took off from the former Boeing Field near Seattle with Boeing pilots also on board.

The crew put the jet through repeated changes in direction, speed and altitude as it headed east over the Cascade Range into central Washington state, according to data from tracking site Flightradar24.com. Dickson said he landed the plane twice and also did “some air work maneuvers.”

The Max has been grounded since March 2019, after the second crash. Both times, an automated anti-stall system pushed the nose of the plane down based on faulty readings from sensors. Boeing hopes to win FAA approval later this year for changes it has made to flight control software and computers, including tamping down the anti-stall system’s power and adding redundancies.