According to the specialized portal Simple Flying, the fleet of 777X test aircraft was grounded after cracks were found in the engine mounts. Certification by the US FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) was thus temporarily paused only one month after the start of test certification flights.
Boeing says the FAA has been informed of the problems “in detail” and that the aircraft’s certification campaign has been suspended and a fleet of test aircraft has been temporarily grounded. Simple Flying, citing sources from Air Current, adds that three of the four test aircraft (N779XY, N779XW, N779XX, and N779XZ) were found with the same problem, i.e. cracks in the engine mounts.
According to Boeing, 501 777X aircraft have been ordered until June 2024, which is seriously behind certification and first deliveries. Discussions about the response to the then Airbus A350 XWB program began in 2011, with the planned design completion by 2015, the first flight in late 2017 or early 2018, and entry into service in 2019. However, Boeing officially launched the 777X project in 2013 and unveiled the redesign of its most popular wide-body aircraft only in 2019, at an event where no senior officials were present due to the then-recent Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX 8 crash. The first flight took place on 25 January 2020, one year after the already extended date. The first deliveries were then planned for Lufthansa in the summer of 2020, but after the first flights, they were postponed to 2021 or 2022. During 2021, Boeing moved the first deliveries to 2023, only to have them move back to 2025 in 2022. Finally, earlier this year Lufthansa, as the first customer, announced that it does not expect the first aircraft until 2026, although Boeing still claims that the first delivery is planned for 2025.
Although it is currently not officially known whether the current incident will again postpone the long-awaited deliveries, it is almost certain that Boeing will have to make certain modifications that will prolong the certification process. All of this comes at an extremely difficult time for Boeing when pleaded guilty to the 737 MAX plane crashes in the court settlement, and the company must pay $487.2 million in fines in addition to mandatory $455 million in improvements to manufacturing processes and quality systems. Additionally, the certification of the 737 MAX 7 and MAX 10 aircraft has also not been completed, although they have been enabled by the US government’s decisions to extend the certification deadlines.
At one time, Boeing stated that the 777X was going through the “most thorough” certification ever conducted, which for many is not a sufficient reason for the total of 13 years that will pass from the official start of the program to the planned first deliveries, which is unusually long for a redesign of an existing aircraft. At the 2023 Paris Air Show, Boeing was extremely cautious in its communications and did not publicly provide details on certification or delivery dates. The main competitor to the Boeing 777X, the Airbus A350-1000 for which the program was launched, took off in 2017, with the first plane being delivered to Qatar Airways in 2018. Additionally, overall deliveries of the first A350 (version -900) began in 2014, and by July 2024, 613 aircraft of the type were delivered.
