Boeing knew about danger year before crashes

This 5 May 2019 video from the USA is called Boeing Knew About MAX 737 Software Error For A Year Before Reporting It To Regulators.

From AFP news agency today:

Boeing engineers identified a fault with a pilot warning system on its 737 MAX aircraft in 2017, a year before the deadly Lion Air crash, the company said Sunday.

Boeing said that management was unaware of the issue until the crash in Indonesia, which killed 189 people, and the planes were not grounded until after another of the type operated by Ethiopian Airlines went down several months later, leaving a further 157 people dead.

According to Boeing, a supposedly standard piece of equipment that tells pilot about disagreements between angle of attack (AOA) indicators — which measure the plane’s angle vis-a-vis oncoming air to warn of impending stalls — did not in fact activate unless an additional optional indicator was purchased by airlines.

That left airlines that did not buy the optional indicator — including both Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines — without the safety feature.

Faulty angle of attack indicator information may have played a role in both of the deadly crashes, causing the 737 MAX anti-stall system to unnecessarily activate and push the nose down toward the ground even as pilots fought to maintain altitude.

“In 2017, within several months after beginning 737 MAX deliveries, engineers at Boeing identified that the 737 MAX display system software did not correctly meet the AOA Disagree alert requirements,” the aircraft manufacturer said in a statement.

“The software delivered to Boeing linked the AOA Disagree alert to the AOA indicator, which is an optional feature,” it said. “Accordingly, the software activated the AOA Disagree alert only if an airline opted for the AOA indicator.”

Yet, Boeing did nothing about the potentially deadly problem. They did not warn the airlines that had been too poor or too stingy to save human lives.

They now claim that the Boeing big bosses supposedly did not know, shifting all blame onto engineers.

Either the big bosses really did not know, and then they are unfit managers. Or they did know, and then Boeing public relations is lying now.

BOEING BLEW IT Boeing said Sunday that some of its 737 Max jetliners were accidentally delivered with a cockpit warning light as an option rather than a standard feature, and that the company knew for months before informing the Federal Aviation Administration. [HuffPost]

US aerospace giant Boeing released a statement Sunday attempting to whitewash its culpability in two deadly airplane crashes involving the company’s new 737 Max 8 aircraft. The statement was released more than six months after the crash of Lion Air Flight 610, which killed 189 people, and nearly two months after the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, which killed a further 157 people, for a total of 346 men, women and children: here.