Boeing has confirmed that it will deploy a flight control software upgrade for its 737 MAX 8 jetliners, which have come under intense scrutiny after the second plane of its kind crashed with a heavy loss of life.

The Chicago-based company made the announcement late Monday, a few hours after the Federal Aviation Administration said it would mandate “design changes” by next month.

Boeing did not reference Sunday’s Ethiopian Airlines crash shortly after takeoff in connection with the software upgrade — but did express the company’s condolences to the relatives of the 157 people who perished.

The manufacturer said that in the aftermath of October’s Lion Air MAX 8 crash, it has for several months “been developing a flight control software enhancement for the 737 MAX, designed to make an already safe aircraft even safer.”

The software upgrade “will be deployed across the 737 MAX fleet in the coming weeks,” it said.

“This includes updates to the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) flight control law, pilot displays, operation manuals and crew training,” Boeing said.

“The enhanced flight control law incorporates angle of attack (AOA) inputs, limits stabiliser trim commands in response to an erroneous angle of attack reading, and provides a limit to the stabiliser command in order to retain elevator authority,” it said.

Boeing added that it has been working closely with the FAA on the “development, planning and certification” of the software upgrade, which also incorporates feedback from customers.

The FAA — which late Monday issued a “continued airworthiness notification” for the MAX 8 — has said it anticipates mandating the software enhancement via an airworthiness directive no later than April.

“It is important to note that the FAA is not mandating any further action at this time,” Boeing said.

In its statement, Boeing also noted the MCAS — which stabilizes the plane in flight — was implemented on the MAX to “improve aircraft handling characteristics and decrease pitch-up tendency at elevated angles of attack.”

“It was put through flight testing as part of the certification process prior to the airplane entering service,” it said. “MCAS does not control the airplane in normal flight; it improves the behavior of the airplane in a non-normal part of the operating envelope.”

The company reiterated that the MAX’s pilot manual “already outlines an existing procedure to safely handle the unlikely event of erroneous data from an AOA sensor.”

AOA refers to angle of attack, the angle at which the oncoming air meets the wing. A plane stalls once the angle of attack increases to a point at which the wings lose lift.

The MCAS uses sensors to point the plane’s nose down if it detects it is pitched too high and could be at risk of stalling — but pilots unfamiliar with the system’s intricacies could be caught by surprise.

“The pilot will always be able to override the flight control law using electric trim or manual trim,” Boeing said.

“We would like to express our deepest condolences to those who lost loved ones on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302,” it added.

“A Boeing technical team is at the crash site to provide technical assistance under the direction of the Ethiopia Accident Investigation Bureau and US National Transportation Safety Board. It is still early in the investigation, as we seek to understand the cause of the accident.”