WSJ: Ethiopian 737 pilots followed Boeing guidelines

WASHINGTON: The pilots of the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX plane that crashed last month initially took the emergency steps outlined by the manufacturer but still could not regain control, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The airliner went down soon after taking off on March 10, killing 157 people in the second deadly crash of a 737 MAX aircraft in less than five months, forcing a worldwide grounding of the model.

The first – a Lion Air crash in Indonesia that killed 189 people in October – led to Boeing issuing a bulletin reminding operators of emergency guidelines to override a specially developed anti-stall system on MAX planes.

The pilots trying to regain control of the Ethiopian jet at first followed those procedures to switch off the Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) but failed to recover control, WSJ said yesterday, citing people briefed on the crash investigation’s preliminary findings.

They then switched the system back as they tried to find other ways to control the jet before it crashed, the newspaper added. Its sources said “the latest details are based on data downloaded from the plane’s black-box recorders”.

A preliminary report on the accident will likely be issued this week, the Ethiopian government has said.

The MCAS, designed to automatically lower the aircraft’s nose if it detects a stall or loss of airspeed, is believed to have been a key factor in both 737 MAX crashes, .