Ethiopia details crew’s action on doomed plane

An Ethiopian official on Thursday confirmed news reports that the flight crew of a doomed Ethiopian Airlines flight followed Boeing's recommended procedures to disable the 737 MAX's automated anti-stall system but they were unable to regain control of the plane before it dived nose-first into the ground.

At a news conference in Addis Ababa, the nation's transportation minister confirmed earlier indications that the plane's anti-stall system repeatedly triggered during the six minutes between take-off and crash, but he did not draw definitive conclusions about the cause of the March 10 disaster.

"The pilots turned the MCAS on and off, but I can't say how many times because we will find that out when we have the final report," Dagmawit Moges, Ethiopia's minister of transportation, told The New York Times.

The preliminary finding by Ethiopian authorities likely will increase pressure on Boeing to develop and install new software for the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS). It also is expected to result in a rigorous review of the software fix by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which has been criticized by aviation analysts and members of Congress for depending too heavily on aircraft industry officials to certify their new planes as safe.

The FAA said late Wednesday that it will launch a joint task force with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and international aviation regulators to review Boeing's new software for the MCAS system.

The task force will be headed by Chris Hart, former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). The FAA has not released names of those who will participate in the Joint Authorities Technical Review team, their affiliations or their nationalities.

"This is an unprecedented move," Robert Mann, president of R.W. Mann & Co., an aviation consulting firm, told China Daily. "I think it will be a good thing for MAX aircraft, but I'm not sure it will be a good thing overall if it creates an international bureaucratic process for future certification that will take longer than any individual oversight agency would now require."

James Hall, managing partner of Hall & Associates, an aviation consulting firm in Washington and a former chairman of the NTSB, said it's unclear how the FAA's new panel will mesh with investigations of Boeing launched by the US inspector general, US Justice Department and Congress.

"Will the technical review team look at the certification process, or is it an attempt to get the plane back in the air?" Hall told China Daily. "We'll see."

Boeing said it would work closely with the new task force.

"We welcome the Joint Authorities Technical Review and look forward to working with the panel," Paul Bergman, a spokesman for Boeing in Seattle, said in a statement. "Safety is our top priority."

If the nose of the Boeing MAX 8 model rises, threatening a mid-air stall, the MCAS system automatically points the plane's nose down to gain speed needed to stay aloft. Boeing added larger, more fuel-efficient engines to upgrade the existing 737 airframe to compete with European rival Airbus. The new engines are positioned closer to the MAX's fuselage and therefore changed the aircraft's aerodynamics and pushed the plane's nose up in certain conditions.

Boeing created MCAS to make the new MAX planes handle more like previous versions of the 737, a popular model used by airlines around the world. Some in the aircraft industry, including pilots, have said Boeing did not provide adequate notice of the new plane's flight characteristics or how to shut off the new anti-stall device if necessary. A group of pilots independently compiled and circulated a 13-page manual about the new system. But others have said Boeing provided adequate notice of the changes and how to disable MCAS.

The version of MCAS installed on the Ethiopian Airlines plane reportedly relied on information from a single sensor. Flight systems are typically built with a backup system so there can be no single point of failure. Since the fatal crashes of MAX jets in Indonesia last October and Ethiopia last month, Boeing has modified design of the anti-stall device to include two sensors on all aircraft.

The family of Samya Rose Stumo,24, a niece of consumer advocate Ralph Nader, on Thursday filed a wrongful death lawsuit in US District Court in Chicago against Boeing, Ethiopian Airlines and Rosemont Aerospace. The lawsuit alleges the defendants were negligent in manufacturing a faulty flight control system and allowing it to be used in MAX aircraft.

The FAA allows airlines to make minor modifications in previously certified aircraft to meet their operational needs, a rule Boeing followed by building the 737 MAX for foreign carriers. Ethiopian Airlines and Indonesia's Lion Air — involved in fatal crashes five months apart —reportedly declined to buy two add-on safety devices that might have helped the pilots keep the doomed planes in the sky.

Neither airline purchased the "angle of attack" system display for readings of two sensors rather than one and a "disagree light" to be activated if the sensors produce conflicting readings. The Ethiopian Airlines crash killed all 157 people on board. A Lion Air crash last October killed 189 passengers and crew.

Boeing's 737 MAX is the latest update of its popular, single-aisle, twin-engine aircraft. Boeing has about 4,600 planes on back order selling at about $120 million each. The fuel-efficient plane has a range of 3,215 to 3,825 miles (about 5,594 to 7,084 kilometers). The 737 MAX, introduced in 2018, is offered in four lengths and seats 138 to 230 passengers. Airlines around the world, including China and the US, have flown the aircraft without incident.

Boeing's stock closed Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange at $395.86 a share, up $11.12, or 2.89 percent, from Wednesday's close. The 52-week range is $292.47 to $446.01 a share. The company has lost about $26 billion in market value since MAX jets were grounded following the crash of the Ethiopian Airlines plane.