Boeing\u2019s 737 MAX aircraft will be outfitted with a warning light for malfunctions in the anti-stall system suspected in October\u2019s fatal crash in Indonesia, an industry source told AFP Thursday, standardizing a feature previously sold as an optional extra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The development comes as the manufacturer struggles to cope with the fallout from both the Indonesia crash and another in Ethiopia this month, which have cast a spotlight on the safety certification process and shaken confidence in a plane that is crucial to its future plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBoeing made this an option because it could, and make money by selling it. Simple as that.\u201dThe warning light will be activated if sensors transmit incorrect data to the plane\u2019s Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System , which is intended to detect and correct stalls by reducing the aircraft\u2019s pitch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Preliminary results in the investigation into October\u2019s Lion Air crash in Indonesia indicate an \u201cangle of attack\u201d sensor, which feeds data to the MCAS, had malfunctioned.
\nBut despite malfunctioning, the sensor continued transmitting data to the plane\u2019s onboard electronics, including the MCAS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Known as a \u201cdisagree light,\u201d this safety feature will become standard and is among the modifications the company will present to US authorities and clients in the coming days, the source said on condition of anonymity.Neither the Lion Air aircraft which crashed in Indonesia, nor the Ethiopian Airlines jet, had the feature, the source said. More than 300 people perished in the two cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So too had Southwest Airlines, the plane\u2019s biggest customer, which also bought an additional \u201cPrimary Flight Display\u201d option, according to a spokesperson.Modifications are in the final stages but Boeing wants to be certain this meets the expectations of regulators and customers, the industry source said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But an industry expert, Scott Hamilton from Leeham Company, said the system should have already been included.\u201cInstrument disagree warnings should be standard and they are important for pilots to know when instruments disagree with each other,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That system takes control of the aircraft, pointing its nose downward, even if the pilot resists, so long as the system is not deactivated, something the Lion Air crew did not know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
US and Ethiopian authorities have said this month\u2019s crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET302 near Addis Ababa bore \u201csimilarities\u201d to last year\u2019s Lion Air crash.The Ethiopian Airlines crash led to the global grounding of 737 MAX aircraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A criminal investigation is currently underway in the United States, with authorities reportedly scrutinizing how the plane received safety certification from US aviation regulators.Senator Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican, called Wednesday for a hearing of the Commerce Subcommittee on Aviation and Space, for March 27, with three transportation officials, notably the acting head of the Federal Aviation Administration.Cruz intends to hold a second hearing to question Boeing officials as well as pilots and others in the industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Boeing\u2019s 737 MAX aircraft will be outfitted with a warning light for malfunctions in the anti-stall system suspected in October\u2019s fatal crash in Indonesia, an industry source told AFP Thursday, standardizing a feature previously sold as an optional extra. The development comes as the manufacturer struggles to cope with the fallout from both the Indonesia […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":57563,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57562"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57564,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57562\/revisions\/57564"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}