TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsFAA says seats on Boeing 737 MAX jets may need inspections
If not corrected, the seats could injure passengers and crew members during an emergency landing or block the aisle and slow an evacuation, the agency said.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
An aerial view of several Boeing 737 MAX airplanes parked at King County International Airport-Boeing Field in Seattle, Washington, United States on June 1, 2022. (Reuters/Lindsey Wasson)
T
he US Federal Aviation Administration said on Monday that seats on hundreds of Boeing 737 MAX jets registered in the US may require inspections in case they were incorrectly installed and needed to be fixed.
If not corrected, the seats could injure passengers and crew members during an emergency landing or block the aisle and slow an evacuation, the agency said.
The FAA's proposed airworthiness directive issued on Monday would apply to 453 jets registered in the US The agency only has jurisdiction over US airlines, but foreign regulators typically follow FAA directives if applicable.
Nearly 2,300 737 MAX jets are in service around the world, including 823 in the US, according to aviation advisory and intelligence firm IBA.
The proposed directive comes as Boeing works to improve its production quality and boost output under CEO Kelly Ortberg. Production quality problems were revealed in early 2024 when a door plug panel blew out of a nearly new Alaska Air 737 MAX in flight.
The FAA said in the airworthiness directive proposal that it received a report that some passenger seat assemblies were not correctly installed in the seat tracks.
That meant the assemblies could disengage from the seat tracks if there was an increased load, turbulence or an emergency landing, the FAA said.
There could be up to 69 track-mounted passenger seat assemblies on each 737 MAX plane, and the issue would take an estimated one work hour to inspect and then an hour to fix each assembly and required no parts, the FAA said. Airlines might be able to have multiple employees inspecting seats simultaneously, greatly reducing the total time for each aircraft.
It did not say how quickly airlines would need to correct the issue.
A Boeing spokesperson said the planemaker issued guidance to operators about the issue in December 2025.
"We support the FAA making that guidance mandatory," the spokesperson said in an email.
