Two Gol Boeing 737 ‘zero-km’ become scrap due to excessive defects

Buying a brand new car and having to return it a few months later would be frustrating. Now imagine that with two brand new planes. That’s what happened with Gol: the airline received two practically new Boeing 737 MAX 8s, flew with them for a short time and ended up returning the aircraft — which must now become scrap — due to excessive problems.

New, but full of problems

The two jets arrived at Gol in 2025. The PS-GRM registration flew for the first time in July and was delivered in September; the PS-GRN debuted in October and was delivered in November. In other words: they were planes fresh from the factory, with months of use.

According to the BrasilAviation.info, the aircraft soon had chronic factory problems linked to the CFM LEAP-1B engines and the center of gravity. Because of this, the Boeing 737s were taken out of passenger transport in February of this year and taken to the company’s maintenance center at Confins airport (Belo Horizonte).

The aircraft were parked in Belo Horizonte for about seven weeks. During this period, according to AeroIn, it was found that both vehicles were “underperforming”, needing more repairs than normal, according to people close to the matter.

The destination: dismantle in the desert

As a stopped plane is a loss, Gol gave up on solving the problems of the two 737 MAX and chose to get rid of both. Instead of flying again, the jets were taken to Pinal Airpark in Arizona — one of the largest “airplane graveyards” in the world. There, they will be disassembled and will have the parts resold.

The curious detail is that, because they are almost new, the jets have become rare material on the market: according to the View from the Wing website, they appear as the first 737 MAX to be dismantled on purpose, and the lessor already advertises the components as “first-hand” items of little-used aircraft. Brazilian reports also mention that Boeing would be the target of a lawsuit linked to the defects, with no official statement from the manufacturer so far.

A model with a turbulent past

Gol’s problem is just one more in the series of controversies that has involved the Boeing 737 MAX since its debut in 2017. Launched as a more economical version of the manufacturer’s best-selling model, the MAX was involved in two tragedies: the crash of the Lion Air flight in October 2018 and the Ethiopian Airlines flight in March 2019, which together killed 346 people.

Investigations pointed to the MCAS automated system, and the model was banned from flying worldwide between 2019 and the end of 2020. In January 2024, the plane returned to the spotlight when a door panel came loose in mid-flight from an Alaska Airlines jet, leading to further investigations into failures on Boeing’s assembly line.