First Congressional Hearing for Boeing 737 MAX on 27 March

In this file photo, a Boeing 737 MAX 8 airplane sits parked in the background. Boeing’s ill-fated 737 MAX and federal regulators will face the first public grilling by Congress on 27 March.

(Photo: AP)

Boeing's ill-fated 737 MAX and federal regulators next week will face the first public grilling by Congress over the two fatal plane crashes in recent months – the Lion Air crash in October 2018 that killed 189 and the more recent Ethiopian Airlines crash that killed 157 people.

Senator Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican, called for a hearing of the Commerce Subcommittee on Aviation and Space, on 27 March, with three transportation officials, notably the acting head of the Federal Aviation Administration.

Cruz intends to hold a second hearing to question Boeing officials as well as pilots and others in the industry, according to the statement.

More than 300 people perished in the two crashes of 737 MAX 8s that occurred shortly after takeoff in Indonesia in October and in Ethiopia earlier this month. Both crashes killed all people on board.

Boeing and the FAA are under investigation by the Transportation Department for how the rollout of the jet was handled, especially the new flight system, the MCAS stall-prevention system, which was implicated in the Lion Air crash in October.

Pilots have complained they were not informed about the new system, which can force the nose of the plane down if it gets an erroneous reading from a sensor –making it appear as if the plane is at risk of stalling.

The committee will hear next week from FAA acting chief Daniel Elwell, as well as the Transportation Department's chief investigator, Calvin Scovel, and National Transportation Board Chairman Robert Sumwalt.

The FAA said on Wednesday that it will review the information from the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder from the Ethiopian Airlines accident as it becomes available.

“Understanding the circumstances that contributed to this accident is critical in developing further actions and returning aircraft to service.”

Federal Aviation Administration

(With inputs from AP)