Europe has become the latest region to suspended flights of all Boeing 737-MAX aircraft following an accident involving Ethiopian Airlines’ flight ET302 on March 10, 2019.
The airlines’ Boeing 737-800 MAX crashed shortly after take-off en route to Nairobi from Addis Ababa, resulting in the loss of 149 passengers and 8 crew members.
The suspension by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) impacts flight operations of all Boeing 737-8 MAX and 737-9 MAX aeroplanes in Europe. The same models are subject to an EASA safety directive suspending all commercial flights performed by third-country operators into, within or out of the EU.
A similar directive was issued yesterday by the UK Civil Aviation Authority, which noted: “External reports are drawing similarities between this accident and Lion Air flight 610 on 29 October 2018 involving the same type of aircraft.
“Given the similarity of the two accidents, it has been decided that as a precautionary measure that all Boeing 737-8 MAX and Boeing 737-9 MAX operations in the United Kingdom, whether by UK AOC holders or foreign AOC holders and carriers, should stop until appropriate safeguards are in place.”
The Digital Flight Data Recorder (DFDR) and Cockpit Voice Recorder(CVR) of ET302 were recovered on March 11, 2019. EASA said the investigation into the crash is ongoing, adding ‘it is too early to draw any conclusions as to the cause of the accident’.
In the US, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has ruled out taking similar precautions unless a direct correlation can be made between the accidents that downed flight ET302 in Ethiopia and Lion Air flight 610 Indonesia.
In a statement, Daniel K. Elwell, acting FAA administrator said: “The FAA continues to review extensively all available data and aggregate safety performance from operators and pilots of the Boeing 737 MAX.
“Thus far, our review shows no systemic performance issues and provides no basis to order grounding the aircraft. Nor have other civil aviation authorities provided data to us that would warrant action.
“In the course of our urgent review of data on the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crash, if any issues affecting the continued airworthiness of the aircraft are identified, the FAA will take immediate and appropriate action.”
According to Boeing, there are 5,012 orders for the single-aisle 737 MAX family of aircraft. Southwest Airlines is currently the model’s largest customer with 280 ordered, 31 delivered and 249 unfilled. The airline took delivery of its first 737-Max on August 26, 2017.
According to the media two pilots flying the 737 Max aircraft have reported that the autopilot when engaged set the plane into a nose down condition which should have raised a red flag.
Again according to the media reports pulling back on the stick has apparently no influence on the pitch down movement and the autopilot “anti-stall” feature has to be disabled by other means.
More and more of the controls are automated and controlled by software and sensors, which assumes that the sensors never fail and that the software has no bugs or defects, which is quite an assumption.
The greater questions is here whether these pilots that apparently did not have high logged hours actually know how to fly this bird (or any other fly-by-wire). If in piloted mode, there are some very clear requirements of any aircraft before auto-pilot can be safely engaged. If for example, they are flying just above stall condition (perhaps after flaps up, climbing slightly but not gaining much airspeed) is that really the best time to engage auto-pilot? I seriously have doubts about pilot skills in these two cases, but there again the real question is how nose down are we talking, and how high is ground elevation at lift-off, how hot was the air, how humid, etc.
If people think that density-altitude no longer matters, then they are simple fools.
It doesn’t matter what the technology or industry silo happens to be, there must always be a manual override or fallback option.
Perhaps maintanence as both planes were from 3rd world countries
Ethiopian Airlines says its aircraft – flight ET 302 – underwent a rigorous first maintenance check on February 04, 2019.
I am reminded of the Staines crash of a Trident leaving Heathrow in about 1972: where the pilot made an error, re-positioning the flaps long before he should have done so: and the co-pilot -there to check the actions of the pilot- failed to react and over-ride his mistake: because of their relative differences in seniority . It was just not done to question the actions of the captain? The aircraft actually hit the ground tail-first: it was a brick, not a flying object.
Over reliance on the ‘system’- always a mistake in any situation.