Aircraft
Boeing 737 Max Completes First Flight
Nine-month flight test campaign officially underway
Angle-of-attack sensor faults in the Boeing 737 Max could lead to nose-down trim commands, loss of control, and, ultimately, a crash, according to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (Photo: Boeing)
Angle-of-attack sensor faults in the Boeing 737 Max could lead to nose-down trim commands, loss of control, and, ultimately, a crash, according to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (Photo: Boeing)

If Boeing’s new 737 Max 8 proved anything at all during its first flight, it was that the company’s narrowbody mainstay can operate without a single flinch in bad weather. Aircraft 1A001 successfully navigated the inclement conditions as it took off smoothly from Runway 34 at Renton Municipal Airport near Seattle Friday. The crew of the 737 Max, Boeing 737 Chief Pilot Ed Wilson and Craig Bomben, chief test pilot and the company’s vice president of flight operations, said the only complications they encountered related to the weather. Consequently, they conducted their tests to the west, over the Olympia Peninsula and Puget Sound, rather than over eastern Washington as they had initially planned.