After crashes, Boeing rolls out safety feature previously sold as option
NEW YORK, United States — Boeing's 737 MAX aircraft will be outfitted with a warning light for malfunctions in the anti-stall system suspected in October's fatal crash in Indonesia, an industry source told AFP Thursday, standardizing a feature previously sold as an optional extra.
The development comes as the manufacturer struggles to cope with the fallout from both the Indonesia crash and another in Ethiopia this month, which have cast a spotlight on the safety certification process and shaken confidence in a plane that is crucial to its future plans.
Known as a "disagree light," this safety feature will become standard and is among the modifications the company will present to US authorities and clients in the coming days, the source said on condition of anonymity.
Neither the Lion Air aircraft which crashed in Indonesia, nor the Ethiopian Airlines jet, had the feature, the source said. More than 300 people perished in the two cases.
American Airlines, which operates 24 737 MAX 8, had bought the option, anticipating potential malfunctions, a source close to the matter told AFP.
So too had Southwest Airlines, the plane's biggest customer, which also bought an additional "Primary Flight Display" option, according to a spokesperson.
Modifications are in the final stages but Boeing wants to be certain this meets the expectations of regulators and customers, the industry source said.
Neither Boeing nor the Federal Aviation Agency offered comment when contacted by AFP.
'Should be standard'
But an industry expert, Scott Hamilton from Leeham Company, said the system should have already been included.
"Instrument disagree warnings should be standard and they are important for pilots to know when instruments disagree with each other," he said.
"Boeing made this an option because it could, and make money by selling it. Simple as that."
The warning light will be activated if sensors transmit incorrect data to the plane's Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), which is intended to detect and correct stalls by reducing the aircraft's pitch.
Preliminary results in the investigation into October's Lion Air crash in Indonesia indicate an "angle of attack" sensor, which feeds data to the MCAS, had malfunctioned.
But despite malfunctioning, the sensor continued transmitting data to the plane's onboard electronics, including the MCAS.
That system takes control of the aircraft, pointing its nose downward, even if the pilot resists, so long as the system is not deactivated, something the Lion Air crew did not know.
Criminal investigation
US and Ethiopian authorities have said this month's crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET302 near Addis Ababa bore "similarities" to last year's Lion Air crash.
The Ethiopian Airlines crash led to the global grounding of 737 MAX aircraft.
A criminal investigation is currently underway in the United States, with authorities reportedly scrutinizing how the plane received safety certification from US aviation regulators.
Senator Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican, called Wednesday for a hearing of the Commerce Subcommittee on Aviation and Space, for March 27, with three transportation officials, notably the acting head of the Federal Aviation Administration.
Cruz intends to hold a second hearing to question Boeing officials as well as pilots and others in the industry.
The investigations will likely zero in on the FAA's program of outsourcing its certification process to airplane manufacturers themselves.
The trend has accelerated due to budget cuts and the increasing volume of air travel, industry sources told AFP. In the case of the 737 MAX, Boeing expressed a case of urgency because of its medium-haul competition with the Airbus A320Neo that launched shortly before, the sources said.
Although it has suspended deliveries of the 737 MAX, Boeing has decided to continue production.
Ethiopia's parliament has declared Monday a day of national mourning after a Nairobi-bound Ethiopian Airlines plane crashed, killing all 157 people onboard.
"The House of People's Representatives have declared March 11, 2019, a national day of mourning for citizens of all countries that have passed in this tragic accident," the office of Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said on Twitter on Sunday. — AFP
The country's transport minister says the 2019 Ethiopian Airlines plane crash which killed 157 people was caused by a flight software failure as suspected, citing the investigators' final report.
The crash of the Nairobi-bound Boeing 737 MAX six minutes after take-off from Addis Ababa on March 10, 2019, which killed all passengers and crew aboard, triggered the global grounding of the MAX and the worst crisis in Boeing's history.
It came just months after the October 2018 crash of a 737 MAX operated by Lion Air in Indonesia, which killed 189 people when it crashed moments after leaving Jakarta airport. — AFP
US aviation regulators plan to require Boeing to rewire all 737 MAX aircraft before allowing the troubled planes fly again, the Wall Street Journal has reported.
The MAX has been grounded worldwide since an Ethiopian Airlines flight crashed shortly after take-off last March, less than six months after the same model was involved in a similar fatal accident in Indonesia.
Both accidents saw uncontrolled drops in the aircraft's nose in the moments before the planes crashed, which investigators have blamed on the model's anti-stall flight system.
Regulators have since concluded that the current wiring layout violated safety standards to prevent short-circuits that could cause similar sharp drops in aircraft pitch, the newspaper said Sunday.
The order to modify the wiring would apply to the nearly 800 MAX plans already produced, including those already in the hands of airlines, according to the report. — AFP
The Ethiopian transport minister says the crew of the Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed last month killing 157 people, repeatedly followed procedures recommended by Boeing, but were unable to regain control of the jet.
"The crew performed all the procedures repeatedly provided by the manufacturer but was not able to control the aircraft," says Dagmawit Moges, unveiling results of the preliminary probe into the crash. — AFP
Investigators probing the fatal crash of a Boeing 737 Max in Ethiopia have reached a preliminary conclusion that a suspect anti-stall system activated shortly before it nose-dived to the ground, the WSJ reports citing people familiar with the matter.
The findings were based on flight recorder data and represented the strongest indication yet that the system, known as MCAS, malfunctioned in both the Ethiopian Airlines crash on March 10 and the Lion Air crash in Indonesia last year, the Wall Street Journal says.
The two crashes killed a total of 346 people. — AFP
French investigators have received the black boxes from the Boeing 737 MAX that crashed east of Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, killing all 157 people on board, France's BEA airline safety agency says.
Ethiopian authorities had requested French help to analyze the content of the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder to discover what caused the Ethiopian Airlines flight to plunge to the ground just minutes after takeoff on Sunday.
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