Boeing will be allowed to take responsibility for certifying all of its 737 Max and 787 planes starting next week, the Federal Aviation Administration said Friday.
The FAA said that after months of review the agency decided that Boeing's final safety checks on its planes are good enough to ensure they are airworthy.
Since September, Boeing and the agency had been taking weekly turns performing the safety checks that are required before aircraft are cleared for delivery and declared safe to fly. The FAA said Friday that the plane maker and government inspectors were both issuing similar findings as they issued airworthiness certificates.
Federal regulators took full control over 737 Max approvals in 2019, after the second of two crashes that were later blamed on a new software system Boeing developed for the aircraft. The FAA ended the company’s right to self-certify 787 Dreamliners in 2022, citing ongoing production quality issues.
“Safety drives everything we do, and this step forward is only possible because we are confident it can be done safely,” FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said.
Government inspectors will continue to oversee Boeing’s factories, but Bedford said they will now be able to focus more on finding and addressing potential defects earlier in the manufacturing process. The plane maker said it will continue working to improve safety.
“Boeing will continue to work under the oversight of the FAA in building safe, high-quality commercial airplanes that comply with all airworthiness certification requirements,” Boeing said in a statement.
Over the past year the FAA has also been easing the monthly production limits it imposed on Boeing's 737 Max jets after a panel flew off one of those planes operated by Alaska Airlines midflight in January 2024. That limit has gradually increased from 38 per month to reach 47 per month this summer.
FILE - Boeing employees work on a 737 MAX airplane on the final assembly line at Boeing's plant in Renton, Wash., on June 15, 2022. (Ellen M. Banner/The Seattle Times via AP, Pool, File)
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — NFL coaching great Bill Belichick spent a bumpy debut season at North Carolina trying to blend a roster full of newcomers and adjusting to life in the college ranks.
It was a learning experience even for someone with a résumé featuring six Super Bowl titles as a head coach and ranking as one of the NFL's all-time leaders in coaching wins.
“Look, I learn every year, I learn things every day,” Belichick said Friday morning during the Atlantic Coast Conference’s preseason football media days.
“Every week is a learning experience for me. Try to listen to the people that are around me that work for us, that do various things, whether it’s academics, training, nutrition, offense, defense, special teams, so forth. Try to do the best I can to help put it all together.
"Recruiting, fundraising — you name it. There are a lot of different things and I can improve in all of them.”
It was a rough debut for the 74-year-old Belichick, best known for his time hoisting trophies and winning with relentless precision alongside star quarterback Tom Brady with the New England Patriots.
His arrival at the college level was a spectacle, one that put a national spotlight on a school with a football program that had long been an ACC also-ran compared to its tradition-rich men's basketball program being among the nation's blueblood elite.
There's less buzz this time around. There’s no curiosity to imagining what it will look like for Belichick to roam a college sideline sporting his trademark hoodie garb. And the Tar Heels’ poor on-field performance offers little reason to expect a big leap in Year 2.
Yet similar to what he was known for in his Patriots tenure, Belichick is focused on his internal evaluation. And he sees cause for optimism.
“Last year when we started, we were literally starting from scratch," he said. “We're above that now for sure.”
Belichick has pointed numerous times to the Tar Heels getting a late run into recruiting after his December hiring, starting with jumping into the transfer portal and then pulling from the high school ranks. That meant pulling together a roster to get started with spring drills, then going through more waves of roster changes leading into preseason camp.
“The biggest thing last year was just how behind we were,” Belichick said of his December 2024 arrival.
By the time the Tar Heels started last season, they had 70 new players.
“This time a year ago, we didn’t have a quarterback who had taken a snap even in spring ball for us,” Belichick said.
“Last year we didn’t have any player-run practices. We couldn't actually line up a team and run against another team without the coaches being out there because we didn't have anybody that knew enough on either side of the ball to do that. Whereas this year these guys have done it all spring and all summer."
To that point, the Tar Heels have plenty of newness on the roster with 60 new players, 40 true freshmen and 17 redshirt freshmen. But UNC also had 35 of the first-year freshmen arrive in time to go through spring practices while there's enough returnees to offer continuity and better stability.
“Culture's a lot different, work ethic's different,” Belichick said. “I'm not taking anything away from the guys that were here. But compared to a year ago, we just know a lot more about what we’re doing and how to do it and our culture’s a lot different.”
Belichick's appearance at this ACC Kickoff event last year was the center of attention. So too was his nationally televised Labor Day debut in front of a sellout home crowd against TCU.
Yet the Tar Heels lost that game in a blowout in what turned out to be a harbinger of frustration to come. And Belichick's mere presence on the sideline only magnified the pressure that arose from on-field troubles and unwanted off-field headlines, from an assistant coach's suspension to tabloid-like interest in Belichick's relationship with 25-year-old girlfriend Jordon Hudson.
“Seeing a guy like Coach Belichick, who’s constantly in the spotlight — I mean, the guy could cure cancer and people would still write negative pieces about him," offensive lineman Christo Kelly said.
“But seeing how he handles himself through everything, seeing how he’s continued to block out the noise, it really sets the standard for what we should be doing.”
By the end of the year, Belichick had fielded a team that had more losses by double-digit margins (five) than total wins, with two home losses ending in an empty stadium with Tar Heels fans having fled early for the exits. UNC's three wins against Bowl Subdivision opponents came against teams with a combined 8-28 record (Charlotte, Syracuse and Stanford), while the Tar Heels failed to make a bowl for the first time since 2018.
“We really felt like it was all Carolina — Carolina for Carolina, nobody else was really rooting for us, everybody wanted to see Coach Belichick fail,” receiver Jordan Shipp said.
“It was just like we knew that we were in this by ourselves. And everybody that was here last year, we know that feeling. So now we know what to expect.”
The same goes for Belichick, who was asked in the afternoon what he had learned about himself at UNC.
“That I like coaching in college,” Belichick said. “I didn’t know whether I would or wouldn’t, but I do.”
AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football
FILE - North Carolina head coach Bill Belichick on the sidelines during the first half of an NCAA college football game against Duke, Saturday, Nov. 22, 2025, in Chapel Hill, N.C. (AP Photo/Chris Seward, File)
