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Ethiopian Airlines crew followed proper guidance before crash, preliminary report finds
By Eric M. Johnson
Addis Ababa: Ethiopian Airlines pilots followed proper guidance in the fatal crash of a Boeing MAX 8 airplane last month, Ethiopia's minister of transport Dagmawit Moges said on Thursday as she delivered the first official report on the disaster.
"The crew performed all the procedures repeatedly provided by the manufacturer but was not able to control the aircraft," Dagmawit told a news conference in the capital, Addis Ababa.
Wreckage is piled at the crash scene of an Ethiopian Airlines flight crash near Bishoftu, Ethiopia.Credit: AP
Families of the 157 victims, regulators and travellers around the world are waiting for clues to the accident after the new Boeing jet crashed six minutes after take-off.
Ethiopia released its first report on last month's fatal crash of the flight from Addis Ababa, as US aviation regulators announced a new safety review of the Boeing's grounded 737 Max planes.
People close to the Ethiopian investigation have said the anti-stall software – which automatically pushes the aircraft's nose down to guard against a loss of lift – was activated by erroneous 'angle of attack' data from a single sensor.
The investigation has now turned towards how MCAS was initially disabled by pilots, in line with part of a cockpit checklist procedure, but then appeared to start working again before the jet plunged to the ground, the people said.
Officials briefed on the matter said a key question is when did the pilots at the helm of the Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX disengage the MCAS system and did they do it too late to regain control of the plane.
Two people briefed on the matter said the system is not designed to resume operations unless the crew acts and the crew may have unintentionally re-engaged the system as it desperately tried to pull the plane out of its nose-down descent.
They cautioned the data was still being reviewed and that the findings were preliminary.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) declined to comment.
Boeing is working to submit an upgrade of the software to the US regulators in a couple of weeks and adding extra training.
The FAA said it is establishing a technical review "to ensure the safety of the Boeing 737 MAX" to be chaired by former NTSB chairman Christopher Hart.
More than 300 Boeing 737 MAX jets have been grounded worldwide after two crashes – in Indonesia in October and in Ethiopia last month – killed nearly 350 people.
Reuters