Boeing seeks exemption for 737 Max model from critical safety standard

DALLAS: Boeing is asking federal regulators to exempt a new model of its 737 Max airliner from a safety standard designed to prevent part of the engine housing from overheating and breaking off during flight. Federal officials said last year that Boeing was working to fix the hazard on current Max planes. In the meantime, they told pilots to limit use of an anti-icing system in some conditions to avoid damage that “could result in loss of control of the airplane.”

Without a fix ready, Boeing asked the Federal Aviation Administration last month for an exemption to safety standards related to engine inlets and the anti-ice system through May 2026. Boeing needs the exemption to begin delivering the new, smaller Max 7 to airlines.

Boeing said on Friday that it is “developing a long-term solution” that would face FAA review.

But some critics are raising alarms about basing safety on pilots remembering when to limit use of the anti-ice system.

“You get our attention when you say people might get killed,” Dennis Tajer, a spokesman for American Airlines pilots, told The Seattle Times, which reported on the waiver request Friday. “We’re not interested in seeing exemptions and accommodations that depend on human memory… there’s just got to be a better way.”

Pilots flying the Max 8 and Max 9 have been warned to limit use of an anti-icing system to five minutes when flying in dry conditions.Otherwise, the FAA says, inlets around the engines could get too hot, and parts of the housing could break away and strike the plane, possibly breaking windows and causing rapid decompression. That is what happened when an engine fan blade broke on an older 737 during a Southwest Airlines flight in 2018.The overheating issue only affects the Max, which has engine inlets made from carbon composite materials rather than metal.