Southwest moving its Boeing Max 8 aircraft to storage

A group of outside experts will now examine how a federal agency signed off on Boeing's 737 Max 8 and whether the agency was too cozy with aircraft maker.

Meanwhile, some airlines are making moves that indicate they're gearing up for a lengthy grounding of the Max 8.

Southwest confirmed to FOX4 it’s moving its planes out of commercial airports like Dallas Love Field and into storage in the California desert at Victorville Airport.

The storing of the planes comes as the timeline for getting them back in service remains unclear.

American Airlines expects to cancel around 90 flights a day during its April schedule -- due to the Max 8 grounding. Southwest is cancelling around 130 per day.

Meanwhile, pilots for Fort Worth-based American and Dallas-based southwest met with Boeing in Washington state over the weekend.

The meeting was aimed a reviewing a software fix Boeing developed for the "MCAS." it's a system meant to prevent a max 8 from stalling by forcing the plane's nose down. It's a system that was activated on both the doomed Lion Air flight and Ethiopian Air flight.     

"We hear that Boeing is going to make some software changes and display changes as well as to make the angle of attack a basic system,” said Captain Yohannes Hailemariam, Vice President of Flight Operations at Ethiopian Airlines.

The U.S. Department of Transportation announced Monday it's established a panel of experts to examine how the FAA certified the Max 8. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao created the special committee to review the matter. It joins the Justice Department, FBI and DOT's inspector general all looking into the matter.

New information into the planes could come as soon as Wednesday.

A transportation committee chaired by Texas’ U.S. Senator Ted Cruz will hold a hearing on the Max and senators will have a chance to question FAA officials. Boeing will also hold another meeting with pilots and others to discuss the software fix.