Singapore’s SilkAir has sent its fleet of Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes – the grounded model involved in two deadly crashes in the last year – for long-term storage at a “plane graveyard” in Central Australia.
Australia's Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) said on Wednesday that SilkAir had been approved last week “to conduct six ferry flights to relocate their 737 MAX aircraft to a maintenance/storage facility located in Alice Springs”.
The first of the six 737 MAX aircraft arrived from Singapore on Monday at the Asia-Pacific Aircraft Storage (APAS) facility, Tom Vincent, managing director of APAS, said Wednesday.
“We are a dedicated aircraft storage and maintenance facility for airlines until the aircraft goes for servicing,” Vincent said.
Following two crashes involving the 737 MAX 8 variants – Ethiopian Airlines in March in Addis Ababa which killed 157 people and Lion Air in Jakarta in October last year which killed 189 people – airlines and aviation authorities globally grounded the entire fleet of MAX series.
SilkAir used to fly the 737 MAX to Australia but has now suspended the operation of its entire fleet of the model, while CASA continues to temporarily prohibit commercial passenger-carrying operations of the 737 MAX aircraft from flying to or from Australia.
Boeing has been hit with numerous lawsuits and investigations. Last week, the company said it will award the families of the 346 victims each US$144,500 in compensation.
Vincent said the aircraft was brought to his Alice Spring storage facility because of its ideal climatic conditions and to protect from structural damage with Singapore entering the tropical wet season.
“It's too humid to store anywhere in Asia,” Vincent said.
CASA said SilkAir, which has six 737 MAX 8s in its fleet, provided detailed information in relation to the airworthiness status of the aircraft, and a detailed operational flight plan for the flights.
“The safety of air navigation is our highest priority,” CASA said.
Vincent said the engineers had already started preserving the aircraft and would work to incorporate the mandated fixes required later to recertify the aircraft.
He said he was not sure however when they could go back into service.
