[Peetwo]

#ET302 #JT610 Boeing 737 MAX update: 

From the WSJ, via the Oz:

Ethiopian Airlines crash pilots’ actions questioned

By ANDY PASZTOR
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
11:01AM APRIL 9, 2019



An Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 sits grounded in Addis Ababa. Puic: AP

Crash investigators believe an automated flight-control system that went haywire led to last month’s fatal crash of a Boeing 737 MAX in Ethiopia.

But some pilots, industry officials and air-safety experts are also raising questions about the actions of the cockpit crew as detailed in last week’s preliminary accident report.

Ethiopian aviation officials and executives at the plane’s operator, Ethiopian Airlines, have said the pilot and co-pilot followed all the steps that Boeing laid out to cope with a misfire of the plane’s MCAS stall-prevention system. The system is suspected in another fatal nosedive of a 737 MAX aircraft in Indonesia last October.

Both events have also put the spotlight on pilot actions to counter the MCAS’s faulty activation. In the case of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, which crashed March 10, killing all 157 aboard, the plane maintained an unusually high speed during part of its short flight. The pilots also reactivated the suspect anti-stall system after manually overriding it -- raising questions about why.

The system, called MCAS for Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System, is designed to automatically push the plane’s nose down when it is at risk of stalling. In both 737 MAX crashes the system misfired, and pilots, battling repeated “nose-down” commands from the system, lost control of the plane.

Indonesian investigators probing last year’s Lion Air 737 MAX crash highlighted piloting and maintenance issues that required safety scrutiny, in addition to calling attention to the MCAS issue.

The Ethiopian airliner’s high speed would have made it harder for pilots to manually pull the jetliner out of its dive, according to pilots and others participating in or closely tracking the probe. These experts also question why the pilots -- contrary to Boeing’s emergency checklist -- would have re-engaged a system that they had identified as causing the plane to pitch downward in the first place.

Such questions don’t change or undercut the crux of the findings in preliminary reports issued in both crashes pointing to errant MCAS activation due to faulty data from a single sensor. Boeing has said it is working on changes to the system’s software to prevent such misfirings and to make it easier for pilots to identify and respond to a problem with the system. Regulators around the world have grounded the 737 MAX pending safety certification of that fix.

Boeing chief executive Dennis Muilenburg last week said “it’s our responsibility to eliminate this risk,” adding “we own it and we know how to do it.”

The Federal Aviation Administration last week said “as we learn more about the accident and findings become available, we will take appropriate action.”

The questions over pilot actions in the Ethiopian flight comes amid simmering tensions between Ethiopian investigators and their American counterparts -- friction that came to the surface shortly after the crash when the two sides disagreed over where to have the plane’s so-called black boxes sent for analysis.

Neither Boeing nor FAA officials, who are formally participating in the probe, reviewed the final version of the 33-page preliminary accident report by Ethiopian investigators prior to its release, according to people in the U.S. briefed on the details. The Ethiopian transport ministry didn’t respond to requests for comment for this story.

A spokesman for Ethiopian Airlines said “the preliminary report confirmed beyond reasonable doubt that the crew followed the right procedures as per the recommendation of the manufacturer and the approval of the regulator.” He added that “the investigation is still in its starting point, and there are a lot of questions which need further analysis.”

Taken together, the plane’s high speed and the re-engagement of MCAS appear to have further complicated the pilots’ cockpit challenges and, according to pilots and safety experts, likely made it harder for them to get out of their predicament. Many of the same people added that with the cascade of warning sounds, alerts and other emergency messages, the crew likely was inundated with sometimes conflicting information that would have been extremely difficult to sort out.

Robert Graves, a pilot who has flown the MAX for a major US carrier, said the high speed was tantamount to a driver experiencing a sudden blowout on the highway and not lifting the foot off the accelerator.

The report, made public last Thursday, found the pilots didn’t reduce engine thrust during the short flight. Data extracted from the black box recorders indicated the plane instead sped along at takeoff power, despite the problems with the flight control system, and eventually reached a speed well beyond its normal operating range.

Pilots who have read the report say that is unusual. A pilot would normally moderate speed if encountering problems like the ones faced during Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, they said. The accident report said the crew didn’t change thrust settings once the plane had become airborne. The plane, within about three minutes, reached its design speed limit and continued to accelerate, according to the accident report.

“The excessive speed is a huge issue” since it made it more difficult for manual commands to move flight-control surfaces on the tail, according to John Cox, a retired 737 pilot, ex-crash investigator and former senior union safety official in the U.S. “I don’t think I have ever seen a 737 that far over maximum speed” envisioned by the manufacturer, he said.

The pilot of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, Yared Getachew, was young but had racked up 8000 hours in the carrier’s cockpits, ranking him as an experienced flyer -- though only 103 of his hours were in 737 MAX jets. Colleagues said he was a respected captain. His co-pilot, Ahmed Nur Mohammed, was a newcomer, having completed roughly 360 hours flying Ethiopian aircraft, with 56 hours behind the controls of a MAX.

The Ethiopian Airlines spokesman said “the crew are our heroes.”

Ethiopian officials didn’t address the aircraft’s high speed at a press conference last week disclosing the initial report and didn’t raise pilot actions as an issue requiring more scrutiny. The Ethiopian Airlines spokesman said the high rate of speed can be attributed to the crew’s intention to continue the plane’s climb, not to level off. He said there was no indication of excessive speed at the start of the flight, before problems started.

The report said that after experiencing flight-control difficulties, the pilot disengaged the MCAS system. Before hitting the cutout switches, the crew electrically trimmed the plane, to push the nose back up, following Boeing’s procedure. But safety experts and pilots who read the report said the crew didn’t appear to follow the procedure fully, failing to sufficiently push the nose up and bring the aircraft into a stable configuration before turning off power to the electric system.

In the wake of the Ethiopian crash, some pilots have said Boeing’s instructions on how to handle the problem were confusing.

When the crew apparently tried to use a manual wheel to pull up the nose, they were unable to do so. Barely seconds before the fatal plunge -- with the pilots seemingly unable to raise the nose -- they reactivated the errant MCAS system.

The pilot also clicked on the plane’s autopilot when a separate stall-warning system was vibrating the control column -- a warning about a loss of lift called “the stick shaker.” Typically in such a situation, a pilot would keep the plane in manual mode. It isn’t clear why the crew followed such a step, and investigators haven’t released cockpit-voice recordings potentially capable of shedding more light on the events.

Wall Street Journal

And from Ironsider & co, via the Oz:

Apology ‘signals settlement’

By NIVELL RAYDA and ROBYN IRONSIDE
9:31PM APRIL 8, 2019


In this file photo taken on March 11, 2019 people stand near collected debris at the crash site of Ethiopia Airlines which killed 157 people. Picture: AFP

An apology from the Boeing CEO for the lives lost in the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes has boosted hopes of a significant out of court settlement for the families of the 346 people killed.

In his response to the preliminary report on the Ethiopian Airlines’ crash, Boeing chief Dennis Muilenburg said he was “sorry for the lives lost in the recent 737 MAX accidents”.

Lawyer Michael Indrayana who is representing 60 Indonesian families, said he took Mr Muilenburg’s apology very positively because it signalled Boeing was committed to settling the matter “hopefully out of court”.

“It is unprecedented for a company the size of Boeing to make such statements,” Mr Indrayana said.

“This is a big case, perhaps the biggest in world aviation history.

“I hope families who were earlier hesitant will now be more confident in suing.”

Mother of three Mediana Agustin, who lost husband Eka Suganda in the Lion Air crash, said the last six months had been hard for herself and her three children.

She said Lion Air had provided no compensation to date, instead insisting next of kin sign a release and discharge statement.

“The document would waive all rights to sue anyone who might be responsible which includes Lion Air, Boeing and 200 other companies which may have direct or indirect links to the crash,” Ms Agustin said.

“I am offended that they demand that I sign the document if I want to be compensated. I lost a husband. But the airline is treating this case as if I have lost a luggage and keep making excuses not to compensate us.”

Lawyer Harry Pontoh said as well as the lawsuit against Boeing, Lion Air was being pursued for appropriate compensation for next of kin.

He said the law stated that families of victims must be compensated by the airline, and that each family was entitled to the equivalent of $130,000.

“The law also clearly states that receiving compensation does not waive the next of kin’s right to sue whoever they feel is responsible for the death of their loved ones,” Mr Pontoh said.

“By requiring next of kin’s to sign the document, Lion Air is actually breaking the law. We have sent a letter to Lion Air threatening them with a lawsuit if they keep stalling the compensation.”

Preliminary reports released for both crashes revealed the role of the “manoeuvring characteristics augmentation system” activated by erroneous information from an angle of attack sensor.

Boeing is now working on a software update to address issues with the MCAS, including making it reliant on information from both AOA sensors.

The aircraft manufacturer will also provide an extra feature at no extra cost, alerting pilots to a disagreement between the sensors.

Neither Lion Air nor Ethiopian Airlines took up the “optional extra” believed to cost about $80,000.

A revised training package for pilots of 737 MAX aircraft is also being prepared.

All 737 MAX 8 and 9 aircraft were grounded after the Ethiopian Airlines crash on March 10 and Boeing has slowed its rate of production for the planes to 42 a month, instead of 52.

The company has more than 4600 orders for the aircraft.

MTF...P2