Boeing Email to Ethiopian Airlines Sheds Light on a Crash

The New York Times ^ | Oct. 24, 2024, 2:16 p.m. ET | Mark Walker

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Newly revealed correspondence indicates that a Boeing senior official counseled that the company could answer a pilot’s safety questions, but it did not.

The questions came in the form of an email on Dec. 1, 2018, to Boeing from the chief pilot at Ethiopian Airlines. They were detailed and filled with aviation jargon. One of them was 452 words.

But in essence the pilot was asking for direction. If we see a series of warnings on the new 737 Max, he posed, what do we do?

What ensued was an email conversation among a number of Boeing senior officials about whether they could answer the pilot’s questions without violating international restrictions on disseminating information about a crash while it was still under investigation.

That restriction was in play because a 737 Max flown by Lion Air had crashed a few weeks earlier leaving Indonesia.

The inquiry from Ethiopian Airlines would prove chillingly prescient because just months later one of its 737s would go down because of a flight control malfunction similar to the one that led to the Lion Air crash. The Ethiopian Airlines crash would kill everyone on board and leave questions about whether Boeing had done everything it could to inform pilots of what it had learned about the malfunction and how to handle it.

In response to the inquiry from Ethiopian Airlines, Boeing’s chief pilot, Jim Webb, proposed to his colleagues that he thank the airline for attending a previous briefing on the flight control system, called MCAS, but otherwise decline to answer the pilot’s first two questions and just refer the airline to training materials and previously issued guidance. Most of those on the email agreed.

[T.B. Yoits]

The MCAS system was required because of a fundamental flaw in the aircraft’s design, namely that they had taken a 1960’s design and retrofitted it with larger, more fuel-efficient engines by moving them forward and up, which changed the aerodynamics making the aircraft’s nose rise and therefore vulnerable to stalling.

Bingo, and it wasn't just vulnerable to stalling, it would go absolutely go into a runaway nose up attitude and stall unless the MCAS system corrected it.

In order to save money and avoid designing a new airframe, Boeing re-engined the 737 and got the FAA to approve an aerodynamically unstable aircraft. It's one thing to do it for an F-16, F-117, or B-2, but it's an entirely different thing to approve it for a commercial airliner.

[algore]

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/03/boeing-sold-safety-feature-that-could-have-prevented-737-max-crashes-as-an-option/

[af_vet_1981]

I’m no expert on aviation but I can’t help but notice that the only two crashes were aircraft being piloted by Third World airlines. I’d be willing to bet that I’m not the only Freeper who’s ever had a white knuckle flight on a Third World airline but I can guarantee that there’s a huge difference between Lufthansa and Air Malawi.

Yes. However, Boeing sells aircraft to many airlines and Boeing is responsible for the manufactured safety of those aircraft. There should be people responsible for the design, implementation, and testing of those aircraft (and not in the executive levels, but rather Systems, Software, and Test engineers).

[af_vet_1981]

A lot of people blamed Boeing's HB-1 Visa engineers/programmers from India. I don't know if that was even a factor, but Boeing should have caught this problem before releasing the aircraft to the airlines.

Find out who was responsible for developing the test case(s) for the condition (faulty sensor). Find out who ran the test case(s) and reported the results.

[Gay State Conservative]

I think you've missed my point. Just consider all the differences you'd see...or assume exist...between flying Lufthansa and flying Air Malawi.

I've flown both...and it would take days to describe the differences I saw.And they had nothing to do with executives or engineers.

[MinorityRepublican]

The question is which airline received the 787 max 8 plane first? The Americans may have gotten it later. So the American pilots may have already been aware of the flaw.

[af_vet_1981]

I think you've missed my point.

I understood the point to be that some airlines have highly competent pilots who can remedy defects (often from their military aviation experience) while 3rd world pilots tend to more canned training scenarios and cannot cope with the defects. In either case, Boeing is still responsible for the manufactured hardware and software defects, while the airline is responsible for poor maintenance and pilot error. Passengers increase their chances of a safe landing by using airlines that employ aviators as pilots.

Most people acknowledge the MCAS is Boeing's responsibility and my view is that the fault should have been detected during testing with a single sensor failure.

[DiogenesLamp]

Nope. The extra sensor was part of an options package. When ti should have been standard and required for obvious reasons. And that is just the tip of iceberg on the stupidity Boeing design on that aircraft. I believe that one of the design flaws still exists. The “STAB” switch does not have a position to cancel all computer control and still have Electric control from the yoke.

You sound like you know more about it than I do, so I will bow to your superior knowledge on the matter.

And yes, it is stupid to cut off electronic control from manual adjustment of the trim.

[DiogenesLamp]

I stand corrected.

[Revel]

Well I don’t know, I think you were right. There were all kinds of articles at the time talking about the 2nd sensor being optional. Now when I go reading around, it seems that they did have a 2nd sensor but the software was not using it.

It seems they were talking about a 3rd sensor that was an option.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/03/boeing-sold-safety-feature-that-could-have-prevented-737-max-crashes-as-an-option/

[minnesota_bound]

Boeing to pilots: We’re not telling unless you pay extra for that section in the manual.