As the pandemic continues to weigh on the aviation industry, Chinese aircraft manufacturer Comac has been pushing ahead with testing a new passenger jet. If successful, the C919 could rival Boeing and Airbus in the largest aviation market in the world. 

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Passengers keep getting bigger. Now airlines must account more accurately for that.

The Federal Aviation Administration is requiring updates to passenger and baggage weight estimates that airlines use to keep each flight within airplane safety limits. Each U.S. airline must submit a plan by June 12 explaining which average weights for passengers and baggage they’ll use, down to phones and clothing, and how they estimated those weights. The FAA must approve each airline’s plan.

Airline officials say the weight estimates used for passengers and baggage are going up between 5% and 10%. That will affect some flights, possibly requiring that more passengers get bumped or more baggage left behind. Impact is likelier on unusually hot days and in cities higher above sea level, when the weight an airplane can safely carry is reduced because wings won’t generate as much lift. Flights into stiff headwinds that require more fuel also may face more weight issues.

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Boeing 737-500 plunged into Java Sea with 62 on board, setting off an investigation into the cause

Investigators in Indonesia are seeking to uncover why a Sriwijaya Air jet crashed into the sea shortly after taking off on Jan. 9. The incident involving a Boeing 737-500 came more than two years after a Lion Air plane went down in the country, resulting in 189 deaths.

What happened to the plane?
The Sriwijaya Air jet crashed into the Java Sea minutes after it took off from Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta. It was carrying 62 people, including 10 children, on a domestic flight to Pontianak, a city on Indonesia’s Borneo island.

The plane departed at 2:36 p.m. and climbed to a maximum altitude of 10,900 feet about four minutes later before beginning a steep descent, according to Indonesian investigators. It went missing at 2:40 p.m.

Divers and search crew located debris from the plane and human remains around an area known as the Thousand Islands, to the north of Jakarta. There were no survivors.

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Shareholders’ suit citing internal Boeing documents alleges board didn’t act as fast on safety as CEO David Calhoun said

The MAX crisis and coronavirus pandemic have prompted Boeing to cut production. A Boeing 737 MAX on the assembly line in 2019. When Boeing Co. board had its first formal meeting around seven weeks after the initial 737 MAX crash in late 2018, directors didn’t hold in-depth discussions about the jet’s safety, according to newly released details of internal company documents.

Months later, Boeing’s current chief executive told journalists the company’s directors had moved quickly to address the accident, according to excerpts of company documents contained in a shareholders’ lawsuit.

That and other new information in the suit cast doubt on whether Boeing directors pressed management about safety problems or seriously considered grounding the plane before a second 737 MAX crash in early 2019.

Parts of the internal Boeing documents, which indicate dates and particulars of meetings the directors held and what was discussed, are cited in the shareholders’ action claiming directors breached their fiduciary duties in overseeing management. The suit also alleges David Calhoun, then the lead-director who later became CEO, exaggerated to journalists the degree to which directors attended to safety concerns between and in the wake of the two crashes.

The suit alleges that Mr. Calhoun, who became CEO in early 2020, conducted a public-relations campaign that “insisted the board acted with more urgency and was more engaged than it actually had been” following the two crashes that killed 346 people in October 2018 and March 2019. The suit cites internal Boeing emails and other documents that weren’t previously public.

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