The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has published additional information regarding the electrical problems grounding many Boeing 737 MAX aircraft at this time. The FAA now confirms that there is problem with electrical bonding associated with the electrical grounding of equipment and there is potential for degradation. As such an AD was issued on April 22, which confirms potentially affected MAX systems include standby power control units, “P6” circuit breaker panels and main instrument panels. Boeing found and reported the problem during routine testing and informed customers to ground affected aircraft on April 9, 2021. We now know that 106 MAX aircraft are known to have been affected with line numbers between 7,399 and 8,082 and are or have been grounded. The aircraft were manufactured after early 2019 design changes which caused this new problem the FAA states.
Affected airlines are: Air Canada, Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Belavia, Blue Air, Cayman Airways, Copa Airlines, GOL, Icelandair, Minsheng Leasing, Neos, Shandong Airlines, SilkAir, Southwest Airlines, SpiceJet, Sunwing Airlines, TUI, Turkish Airlines, United Airlines, Valla Jets, WestJet and Xiamen Airlines.
This update does not contain any timeline on the rectification process. The US and Chinese airlines will be most affected as their markets are recovering fastest from the pandemic. However, all airlines will be relying on running the MAX from the outset of operations restarting and as such this will inevitably in the end be another financial headache for Boeing to handle.
The FAA states clearly that this issue has nothing whatsoever to do with the MACS system or the re-design of any such system or related system to the grounding of the aircraft following the fatal incidents.