The European aviation authority EASA is about to allow the troubled Boeing 737 MAX back into European airspace.

 

Next week, the flight ban for the aircraft, which remained on the ground for almost two years for safety reasons, will be lifted. That says EASA CEO Patrick Ky.

Flying with the MAX had been banned since March 2019, because two fatal crashes with aircraft of that type had occurred within a short period.

In those disasters with flights from the Indonesian Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines, 346 people were killed.

After investigation, it turned out that the disasters were caused by a failing safety system, which kept pushing the nose of the aircraft down unintentionally.

Later, the American regulator FAA was also sharply criticized because the agency did not sufficiently monitor Boeing and thus could not guarantee travellers’ safety.

The United States and Brazil lifted the flight ban in November last year. In Canada, the aircraft are allowed to fly again from Wednesday. EASA had already said in November that it expected the European authorization “from mid-January”.