Boeing 737 Max returns to skies with roundtrip to LaGuardia Airport

NEW YORK - American Airlines flew a Boeing 737 Max with paying passengers from Miami to New York on Tuesday, the plane's first commercial flight in U.S. skies since it was grounded after two deadly crashes.

American flight 718 carried 87 passengers on the 172-seat plane, and the return flight from LaGuardia Airport to Miami International Airport held 151 passengers, according to an airline spokeswoman.

Last month, the Federal Aviation Administration approved changes that Boeing made to an automated flight-control system implicated in crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed 346 people in all. In both crashes, the system pushed the nose down repeatedly based on faulty sensor readings, and pilots were unable to regain control.

Regulators in Europe and Brazil cleared the way for airlines to resume using the plane if certain changes were made and pilots were provided with additional training.

American Airlines flight 718, a Boeing 737 Max, takes off from Miami International Airport on its way to New York on December 29, 2020. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

The first passenger flight with a revamped Max took place this month in Brazil. Brazil’s Gol airlines has since operated more than 540 flights and Aeromexico has operated more than 80 with Max planes, according to tracking service Flightradar24.

The Max was grounded worldwide in March 2019, days after the second crash. Reports by House and Senate committees faulted Boeing and the FAA for failures in the process of certifying the plane.

FAA Administrator Stephen Dickson, a former military and airline pilot, operated a test flight in September and vouched for the reworked plane's safety, saying he would put his family on it. American Airlines President Robert Isom was on Tuesday's inaugural U.S. flight, according to the airline.

Some relatives of people who died in the second crash, a Max operated by Ethiopian Airlines, contend that the plane is still unsafe. They and their lawyers say that Boeing is refusing to hand over documents about the plane's design and development.

"The truth is that 346 people are now dead because Boeing cut corners, lied to regulators, and simply considers this the cost of doing business," Yalena Lopez-Lewis, whose husband died in the crash, said in a statement issued by her lawyers. "It is infuriating that American Airlines is in effect rewarding Boeing for the corrupt and catastrophic process that led to the Max."

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Zipporah Kuria, a British citizen whose father also died in the Ethiopian crash, pointed to the recent disclosure in a Senate committee report that Boeing representatives coached FAA test pilots reviewing Boeing updates to the Max flight-control system.

"Boeing leadership is still riddled with deceit. Their priorities are not on consumer safety," she said in an interview. 

Boeing spokesman Bernard Choi said the company "learned many hard lessons" from the crashes and is committed to safety.

"We continue to work closely with global regulators and our customers to support the safe return of the fleet to service around the world," Choi said.

American plans to make one round trip a day between Miami and New York with the planes through Jan. 4 before putting the Max on more routes. United Airlines plans to resume flights with the Max in February, and Southwest Airlines plans to resume flights with the planes in March.