Boeing 737 MAX completes China test flight as US firm seeks end to ban
- Flight-tracking website Flightradar24 showed a 737 MAX 7 test plane taking off from Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport
- Boeing’s 737 MAX remains grounded in China following a nearly two year safety ban after crashes five months apart killed 346 people
A Boeing 737 MAX test plane took to the skies in China on Wednesday as the US manufacturer looks to end a nearly two-and-a-half-year regulatory grounding of the model in the key travel market.
Flight-tracking website Flightradar24 showed a 737 MAX 7 test plane taking off from Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport at 9.24am, with no destination listed, flying in a south-easterly direction.
The flight tracking was incomplete, but photos on Chinese aviation blogs showed it landed at Zhoushan Putuoshan Airport, about 150km (80 miles) to the south, which industry sources told Reuters was the expected destination.
Boeing has a 737 MAX completion plant in Zhoushan to install interiors and paint aeroplane liveries.
Reuters reported last week it was due for its first test flight in China on Wednesday if all went well.
Boeing said it was continuing to work with global regulators as they complete their validation processes on the model and declined to comment specifically on the test flight in China.
After flight testing, China’s regulator is expected to issue an aircraft evaluation report and put it out for comment before pilot training can begin, a source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Some 30 airlines and 175 countries have allowed the 737 MAX to return to service following a nearly two year safety ban after crashes five months apart killed 346 people, plunging Boeing into a financial crisis long-since compounded by the global coronavirus pandemic.
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Before the 737 MAX was grounded in March 2019 after a second fatal crash, Boeing was selling one quarter of the planes it built annually to China buyers.
For years, simmering geopolitical tensions between Washington and Beijing have caused uncertainty.
Industry sources have also cautioned that the worsening coronavirus pandemic situation in China may delay the planned testing.
