The Boeing 737 MAX will be receiving updated flight control software, the airplane maker announced on Tuesday. The software announcement comes four months after the crash Lion Air Flight JT610 and two days after the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET302. Both of which involved effectively brand new Boeing 737 MAX 8 airliners.


In a statement, Boeing said:

The Chicago-based aviation giant said that update will be implemented across the 737 MAX fleet in the coming weeks.


Boeing expects the US Federal Aviation Administration to issue an Airworthiness Directive "no later than" April to mandating the updated software.


The company has not indicated it will make physical changes to the aircraft that has been in service last spring.


At the heart of the controversy surrounding the 737 MAX is MCAS or the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation system. To fit the MAX's larger, more fuel-efficient engines, Boeing had to redesign the way it mounts engines on the 737. This change disrupted the plane's center of gravity and caused the MAX to have a tendency to tip its nose upward during flight, increasing the likelihood of a stall. MCAS is designed to automatically counteract that tendency and point the nose of the plane downward.


Unfortunately, initial reports from the Lion Air investigation indicate that a faulty sensor reading may have triggered MCAS shortly after the flight took off.