Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Chief Steve Dickson is due to conduct a two-hour evaluation flight at the controls of a Boeing 737 MAX on Wednesday, a key milestone for the jet to win approval to resume flying after two fatal crashes. Dickson, a former military and commercial pilot, and other FAA and Boeing pilots are due to take off around 9 a.m. PDT (1600 GMT) from King County International Airport – also known as Boeing Field – in the Seattle area and land around 11 a.m. (1800 GMT). For Boeing, the flight is another milestone in the U.S. planemaker’s long-delayed quest to persuade the FAA to lift a March 2019 grounding order triggered by 737 MAX crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia within five months that killed 346 people.
