A week ago it was the glitch that froze the Boeing 737 MAX 10's certification. On Friday, 2 October 2026, the Federal Aviation Administration decided it was not a safety problem after all.

A panel of FAA safety experts concluded that a software issue in certain 737 MAX flight management computers, which can make vertical navigation guidance unavailable during a go-around, does not require a mandatory fix. Boeing will tell pilots about it in a bulletin instead.

That clears one obstacle in front of the long-delayed MAX 10. It does not settle the argument with Boeing's biggest customers, some of whom have said they will not take aircraft with the flawed software.

What the FAA decided

The ruling came from the FAA's Corrective Action Review Board, the panel that decides whether a known problem poses an unacceptable risk. Its verdict was blunt. In a statement reported by AFP and others, the FAA said its experts had "determined a software issue in certain Boeing 737 MAX flight computers is not a safety concern."

According to FlightGlobal, Boeing will issue a bulletin explaining the issue and how pilots should respond, and the FAA is not mandating any action by operators. Boeing said it would "continue to follow the lead of the FAA as our engineers work on the next software update."

The glitch, explained

Modern airliners fly most approaches with the flight management computer handling both the lateral path (LNAV) and the vertical profile (VNAV). The problem appears during a go-around, when the crew abandons a landing and climbs away.

According to Aviation Week, if pilots reprogram the flight path during the missed approach, the guidance can drop out of VNAV and revert to simpler pitch modes such as level change or vertical speed. The aircraft still flies normally and the pilots stay in control, but they lose the automated vertical profile at one of the busiest moments of any flight. The issue was first detected in Update 14.0 of the flight management software, which is supplied by GE Aerospace.

What it means for the MAX 10

The problem surfaced at the worst possible moment for Boeing. The 737 MAX 10, the largest member of the family, was close to certification when Boeing disclosed the issue on 26 September. Two days later FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said the agency would be "delaying the 10" until it was satisfied there was no problem.

Aviation Week reports that the FAA now says the software issue will not stop MAX 10 certification. No certification date has been announced, and Boeing and GE are still working on a software update that removes the problem altogether.

The bigger question is the customers. According to Aviation Week, United Airlines and Southwest Airlines have said they will not accept aircraft with the flawed software. The aviation news site aeroTELEGRAPH noted on Sunday that airlines had been sceptical of the software for some time. A regulatory green light does not automatically mean airlines will take the jets before the fix arrives.

Airline pilot and blancolirio host Juan Browne breaks down the 737 MAX 10 VNAV issue and the FAA's 2 October decision.

For now, Boeing has what it needed most: the FAA on record saying the MAX 10 is not being held back by a safety risk. The next milestone is the certificate itself.

Sources: Federal Aviation Administration, AFP, Aviation Week, FlightGlobal, Bloomberg, aeroTELEGRAPH