Boeing shares plunge as FAA rejects proposal on MAX wiring

(Reuters) – Shares of Boeing Co (BA.N) dropped 12% on Monday after the planemaker’s proposal to depart wiring bundles in place on the grounded 737 MAX did not get the backing of U.S. aviation regulators, probably delaying the aircraft’s return to service.

Boeing shares have been down at $231.60 in early buying and selling, a degree not seen since 2017.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) advised Boeing on Friday it didn’t agree with the planemaker’s argument that the wiring bundles meet security requirements and now it’s as much as Boeing to determine how you can proceed.

Boeing in February mentioned it didn’t imagine it was required to separate or transfer wiring bundles on its grounded 737 MAX jetliner that regulators had warned may trigger a brief circuit on the 737 MAX, and result in a crash if pilots didn’t react quickly.

There are greater than a dozen completely different spots on the 737 MAX the place wiring bundles could also be too shut collectively. A lot of the areas are underneath the cockpit in {an electrical} bay.

Boeing has famous in talks with the FAA that its 737 NG has the identical wiring bundles and that it has been in service since 1997, logging 205 million flight hours with none wiring points.

An organization official advised Reuters in January, Boeing had been engaged on a design that will separate the wiring bundles, if mandatory.

Shifting the bundles may pose additional delays to the return of the MAX, nevertheless. A key certification take a look at flight shouldn’t be anticipated till April or later.

Additional, an interim report by the federal government in Addis Ababa mentioned on Monday a defective sensor studying and the activation of an anti-stall system on the 737 MAX preceded the crash of an Ethiopian Airways flight in 2019.