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The deaths of 346 people would have been “avoidable” without the numerous design errors and the series of management and control irregularities during the development of the Boeing 737 Max also caused by the pressures caused by competition from the Airbus A320neo. In a 245-page report released on Wednesday after a year and a half of work, the US parliamentary inquiry commission launches a harsh indictment against the aerospace giant and the FAA, the US federal regulator, over the latest aircraft. generation involved in two accidents immediately after takeoff killing all passengers and personnel on board.
Accident
The Boeing 737 Max of Lion Air Flight 610 took off from Jakarta, Indonesia on October 29, 2018 and sank as soon as it left the city, killing 189 people instantly. A few months later, on March 10, 2019, the dynamic was repeated with another plane of the same type when Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, crashed to the ground (157 victims). It is at that moment that a few hours later the local air transport security authorities decide to stop the 737 Max, which has not taken off with the passengers since then.
The rubble of the 737 Max in Ethiopia
Accuses him
“Boeing failed in the design and development of the 737 Max and the FAA (the US federal aviation agency, ed) did not play a role in Boeing’s oversight and certification of the aircraft, ”the report wrote. The parliamentary commission argues that the incidents “were not the result of a single failure, technical error or poorly managed event.” Worse, those incidents “were the horrifying culmination of a series of flawed technical assumptions by Boeing engineers, a lack of transparency by company management, and grossly insufficient oversight by the FAA.”
The role of the “deep throats”
To arrive at today’s report, the commission has flipped through more than 600,000 pages of documents requested from Boeing, FAA, airlines and other companies involved. During the investigation, several interviews, in some cases actual interrogations, were also conducted with dozens of Boeing and FAA employees. Also playing a crucial role was the “deep throats” of both the aerospace giant and the regulatory body who, in addition to providing various details, also delivered emails that they deemed important for the investigation.
The external sensor that supplied the data to the anti-blocking system “Mcas”
The anti-lock system
The two incidents of 2018 and 2019 revolve around the role played by the “Mcas”, the anti-lock computer system that, upon receiving information from a single external sensor, is capable of returning the nose of the aircraft to the proper level. But on both flights, that sensor received incorrect data, causing the software to act accordingly and in a dangerous way by crashing the 737 Max shortly after takeoff. The pilots tried to react, but on the Lion Air flight they did not even know of the existence of this anti-blocking system, in the second case the “Mcas” required such physical force that the pilots would have been unable to lift their nose.
“Crucial information omitted”
The document maintains on this point that Boeing has made “incorrect assumptions of design and performance”. Not only. Because the company has also “omitted crucial information” related to the “Mcas” both for the FAA and for customers and pilots. The very existence of the anti-lock system has not been included in the manuals for the crews, thus convincing regulators not to require additional (and more expensive) pilot simulator training to enable them on the 737 Max. to the FAA that according to the commission “it has not been able to guarantee the security of the public transport”. The commission has proposed some reforms to the certification procedures.
Changes
Last year, the National Transportation Safety Board (the body that investigates accidents in the transportation sector, ed) explained that Boeing has “overestimated” the ability of pilots to handle a series of alarms during Mcas malfunctions. The company has introduced changes to the anti-lock system making it less powerful, giving pilots more control and the software more external data before being activated: all changes that are being considered these months as part of the recertification procedures. of the aircraft. After testing by US regulators, in recent days it was the turn of Canadian and European colleagues in the skies of Canada.
The reactions
Boeing responds to the report by stating in a statement that it “was fully cooperative from the beginning” and “learned many difficult lessons from the accidents and mistakes we made.” The company recalls having carried out “all the necessary measures to be able to return the 737 Max to flight safely”, having “changed the activities of the engineers, giving them a more direct channel with senior management (in the meantime it changed, ed) to share their concerns. “The FAA announced that they intend to work” with legislators to implement the improvements identified in the report. “
DOCUMENT: Read the full investigative report of the US Parliamentary Commission here.
September 16, 2020 (change September 16, 2020 | 4:21 pm)
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