Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Chief Steve Dickson began a two-hour evaluation flight at the controls of a Boeing 737 MAX on Wednesday, a 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 took off just before 9 a.m. PDT (1600 GMT) from King County International Airport – also known as Boeing Field – in the Seattle area. The flight is part of 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 that killed 346 people within a five-month period.
