Pilots ‘not told’ about potentially fatal flaw
Boeing failed to warn pilots and tell them how to deal with a potential control failure in its newest airliner, according to officials investigating a deadly crash in Indonesia last month.
The Lion Air Boeing 737 Max 8 plunged into the Java Sea on October 29, killing all 189 people on board.
Indonesian investigators and United States pilots’ organisations say the American manufacturer failed to make it clear to pilots that the Max jet was equipped with a new system that could make the aircraft descend in the event of a malfunction.
Boeing has received almost 5000 orders for the 737 Max series, and a few dozen are in service around the world.
The system is designed to prevent the jet stalling and resists pilots’ commands, even if they are flying manually. This appears to have happened on the Lion Air plane after its computer received faulty data from sensors.
Pilots can switch off the automatic protection, known as MCAS, but this was not explained in training programmes given to airlines that bought the new aircraft, including Lion Air, according to some pilots’ organisations.
‘‘It is information that we were not privy to in training or in any other manuals or materials,’’ said Dennis Tajer, a spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association of the United States, which represents American Airlines pilots.
One unnamed American Airlines pilot wrote of his surprise on the Pilots of America online forum after a training session. ‘‘What’s been frustrating to us is that we had no idea that this MCAS even existed.’’
Soerjanto Tjahjono, head of the Indonesian team investigating the Lion Air crash, said authorities there would take remedial action.
One of the selling points of the aircraft was that it needed minimal new training for pilots familiar with older 737 models.
Lion Air officials said a conversion course, approved by American and European regulators, amounted to three hours of computer training and a familiarisation flight. US pilots were given ‘‘little more than a onehour session on an iPad’’, Tajer said. – The Times