Boeing refused pilot request for quick fix after first 737 Max crash
According to The New York Times and CBS, pilots of American Airlines told Boeing in November of last year that the security problems with a software system on the 737 Max must be quickly resolved. Boeing would have refused that.
CBS News has released a video entry containing several audio clips of American Airlines pilots expressing frustration with Boeing over the safety of the 737 Max aircraft. For example, an American Airlines pilot tells a Boeing employee that ‘we simply deserve to know what is on our planes’. The pilots are indignant about the fact that the existence of the so-called MCAS was only made known after the first Lion Air crash in October last year. “These guys didn’t even know the damn system was on the plane and nobody else knew.” With this, the pilots present are probably referring to the Lion Air pilots who in October last year were unable to prevent their 737 Max 8 aircraft from crashing into the Java Sea, twelve minutes after takeoff.
Boeing Vice President Mike Sinnett, who according to CBS was present at the meeting with the pilots and did not know that his statements were being recorded, said the Lion Air crash was a very exceptional scenario. “I don’t know if understanding this system would have changed the outcome. We try not to overload the pilots with information that is unnecessary so that they are familiar with the information that we think is really important.” The pilots present were reportedly unhappy with that response. “We are the last line of defense before a crash and we need that knowledge.” According to The New York Times, Sinnett also said during the meeting that no one has yet concluded that the MCAS was the sole cause of the crash. Boeing would then have indicated that it would come up with a fix, but the company did not want to rush it. This solution had still not been implemented when the second aircraft crashed in Ethiopia in March this year. 346 people died in both crashes.
The so-called MCAS is most likely the culprit and the cause of the crash of a 737 Max from the Indonesian Lion Air in October last year and a similar type of aircraft from Ethiopian Airlines in March this year. Final, official final research results are yet to follow, but much is already clear. Boeing integrated the system to prevent a stall situation and set it up so that the input came from only one of the two angle of attack sensors present. Presumably due to incorrect data from this sensor, the software system thought that the angle of attack was too large, and therefore a situation in which the nose would be pointed too far up and that a stall situation threatened as a result. The system responded by pushing the nose down sharply more than once, at an angle of no less than 45 degrees. A warning light that could indicate that deviating values were detected at the angle of attack sensors was optional and was not fitted to either aircraft. Boeing will still standardize this and will soon come up with a software update that should adjust the system in such a way that such crashes are a thing of the past. For the time being, all types of this aircraft are still grounded.