Pilots made repeated complaints about plane

DALLAS— Pilots repeatedly voiced safety concerns about the Boeing 737 Max 8 to U.S. authorities, with one captain calling the flight manual “inadequate and almost criminally insufficient” several months before Sunday’s Ethiopian Air crash that killed 157 people, an investigation by the Dallas Morning News found.

At least five complaints about the Boeing model were found in a federal database where pilots can voluntarily report aviation incidents without fear of repercussions.

The complaints are about the safety mechanism cited in preliminary reports for an October plane crash in Indonesia that killed 189.

The disclosures refer to problems with an autopilot system during takeoff and nose-down situations while trying to gain altitude during flights of Boeing 737 Max 8s. Records show these flights occurred during October and November, but information regarding which airlines the pilots were flying for at the time is redacted.

Records show a captain who flies the Max 8 complained in November that it was “unconscionable” that the company and federal authorities allowed pilots to fly the planes without adequate training or fully disclosing information about how its systems differed.

An FAA spokesperson said the reports were filed directly to NASA, which is a neutral third party for reporting purposes.