Report: Boeing 737 MAX software patch expected soon

Boeing will release upgraded software for its 737 MAX aircraft in a week to 10 days, according to media reports Friday.

The 737 MAX is the model of plane that has been involved in two recent deadly crashes: the Ethiopian Airlines crash Sunday and the Lion Air crash in Indonesia in October.

AFP, the French news agency, was the first to report the imminent software upgrade, attributing the information to two unnamed sources.

The Ethiopian and the Lion airliners appeared to have similar problems, with both crashing minutes after takeoff, killing everyone on board.

A Boeing statement, however, issued Monday, a day after the Ethiopian crash, said its “software enhancement” would be “deployed across the 737 MAX fleet in the coming weeks.”

The statement said Boeing had been working on the software update “the past several months and in the aftermath of Lion Air Flight 610.”

The software patch is “designed to make an already safe aircraft even safer,” the statement said.

Ethiopian Airlines has brought its plane’s cockpit voice and flight data recorders to France’s BEA air safety agency to begin the investigation into the doomed flight that killed 157 people.

The Lion Air crash killed 189 people.