Boeing 737 MAX safety record
The 737 MAX had two fatal accidents, in 2018 and 2019, and was grounded worldwide — for twenty months in the United States, longer elsewhere. Here is what went wrong, what was changed, and its record since.
Two fatal accidents, a grounding, and the changes since
Two 737 MAX aircraft crashed within five months of each other: Lion Air 610 in October 2018 and Ethiopian 302 in March 2019, killing 346 people. Investigators found that a flight-control system, MCAS, repeatedly pushed the nose down on the strength of a single faulty sensor. Regulators grounded the MAX worldwide in March 2019. The United States cleared it to fly again in November 2020, Europe in January 2021 and China at the end of 2021, after the system was redesigned and pilot training changed.
In January 2024 a door plug blew out of an Alaska Airlines 737-9 shortly after take-off; the aircraft landed safely and no one was killed. Investigators found the bolts meant to hold the plug had not been refitted at Boeing's factory, and 737-9s with that plug were grounded for inspection for about three weeks. Boeing's own accident summary puts the MAX at 0.27 fatal hull losses per million departures, both of them the 2018 and 2019 crashes. That is higher than the aircraft of its own generation — the 737-800 family stands at 0.08 and the A320neo at 0.04 — and below the 0.52 average across the worldwide jet fleet Boeing tracks since 1959.
The 737 MAX in numbers
The wings are meant to bend
The 737 MAX's wings flex in bumpy air: the tips rise and fall as the wing absorbs a gust rather than passing all of it into the cabin. They're built to bend far further than anything the weather can ask of them.
It's a mid-sized jet, so you'll feel a gust more than on a big widebody. That's the aircraft's size, not a weakness: every airliner is built to take far more than any turbulence it will meet.
Six across in economy
The 737 MAX seats six across in economy, three either side of one aisle, in the same cabin width as every 737. The drawing fits those six seats and the aisle into that published width.
It's a slightly narrower cabin than the Airbus A320's, which shows up in the seats. Airlines choose seat pitch — the distance between rows — separately, so legroom depends on who you fly with, not on the aircraft.
How big it really is
A 737 MAX is a single-aisle jet, about the same size as the 737 NG it replaces and the Airbus A320 it competes with. It's the aircraft on a huge number of short and medium flights.
Tap any other airliner to lay it over the 737 MAX at exactly the same scale.
The 737 MAX in white, the 777 outlined in gold. Same scale, same metre.
Boeing 737 MAX questions
How safe is the 737 MAX?
The 737 MAX had two fatal accidents, in 2018 and 2019, and was grounded worldwide — for twenty months in the United States, longer elsewhere. Every figure on this page is sourced — the list is at the bottom.
Is the 737 MAX safe to fly now?
The 737 MAX was grounded worldwide in 2019 after two fatal accidents, and returned to service only after regulators, led by the FAA and followed by others including EASA, approved changes to its flight-control software, its sensor inputs and pilot training. It has since flown in large numbers with those changes in place.
How do I know if my flight is on a 737 MAX?
The booking often names only the family, and airlines swap aircraft. FlyBud reads the type and registration actually assigned to your flight and updates when it changes.
What changed on the 737 MAX after the grounding?
The flight-control system at the centre of both accidents was redesigned to take input from both angle-of-attack sensors instead of one, to act only once per event, and never to push the nose down harder than the pilots can counter with the control column. Pilot training and procedures were updated as well, and each aircraft was inspected before returning to service.
Every other airliner
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page is from the manufacturer, the certifying authority or the published accident record.
- Boeing Wingspan, Length, Cabin width, Economy, Seat width
- Boeing Typical seats, Range
- EASA type certificate data sheet Cabin altitude, Engines
- Wikipedia Delivered
- Boeing Still being built
- Boeing First flight
- businesswire.com In service since
- Boeing Accident record
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