The Federal Aviation Administration has approved Boeing’s proposed solution to bring its MD-11 planes back to the sky.

The FAA grounded the MD-11 and its predecessor the DC-10 after a deadly UPS crash in November, which saw an engine break free from the cargo plane’s wing. The crash killed three UPS crew members on board and 12 others on the ground.

It also left the MD-11’s future uncertain. The McDonnell Douglas plane, which Boeing took responsibility for when it merged with the company in 1997, was already being replaced with newer, more fuel-efficient models and many in the industry wondered if the FAA’s grounding would mean a hurried retirement for the entire fleet.

UPS and FedEx already planned to retire their MD-11s over the next several years and the crash prompted UPS to accelerate its plans, announcing in January that its MD-11s would not return to service.

On Monday, spokespeople for the FAA, Boeing and FedEx said the grounded plane now had a path forward.

“After extensive review, the FAA approved Boeing’s protocol for safely returning MD-11 airplanes to service,” the FAA spokesperson said.

Boeing said Monday it has issued a message to operators with inspection instructions, following FAA approval. The company declined to elaborate on its proposed fix.

FedEx said that its MD-11 aircraft began returning to service over the weekend, following FAA’s approval of Boeing’s instructions and validation that FedEx had completed the required repairs and inspections on two MD-11 planes.

A spokesperson for the carrier said last week that Boeing had developed a repair and inspection plan, pending final approval from the regulator. That plan, according to details shared by FedEx, includes replacing a small piece of the hardware that holds the plane’s engines to its wings.

That piece, known as a bearing, has been a crucial factor in the investigation into what caused a deadly UPS MD-11 crash in November.

The National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the crash, said in a preliminary report it found signs of fractures on some of the pylon hardware, specifically the left pylon aft mount lug and the spherical bearing. It found evidence of fatigue cracks and overstress failures on the aft mount lug.

The NTSB later said that Boeing had previously warned MD-11 operators of four failures of the same piece in 2011, but the plane-maker said the failures did not pose a safety risk.

Following Boeing’s proposed solution, FedEx said its maintenance team will install new bearings in the aft mounts of each side pylon and inspect the aft bulkheads.

After those repairs, each aircraft will undergo a test flight before returning to service, FedEx said. Two aircraft successfully completed test flights and returned to revenue service on Sunday, the company said.

The NTSB is holding a two-day investigative hearing next week regarding the UPS crash.

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