IS IT SAFE?

First Boeing 737 Max Back in the Air After Worldwide Grounding

American Airlines operated a demo flight of the Boeing 737 Max on Wednesday and plans to put the controversial plane back into service this month.

Boeing’s 737 Max—a plane that killed 346 people in two separate crashes within a year—is back in the sky. On Wednesday, American Airlines operated a demo flight from Dallas to Tulsa, the first time a 737 Max has been brought back into service anywhere in the world. “I’m very comfortable,” Peter Gamble, the captain, told journalists from CBS who were onboard. The 737 Max has been grounded since 2019 while the company worked to fix a flaw in an anti-stall system that contributed to the Lion Air Flight 610 crash in October 2018 and the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crash last spring. It’s to-be-determined how willing travelers will be to ride on the aircraft when commercial flights resume this month. American Airlines will tell passengers if their flight is on a 737 Max and will let them switch to a different flight without penalty if requested.