Ethiopian Transport Minister Dagmawit Moges, who announced the findings on 17 March 2019, said the government would release more detailed information within a month.
By Francesca Paris (NPR)
Data retrieved from the black boxes of the Ethiopian Airlines crash that killed all 157 people on board last week show “clear” similarities with the crash of a Lion Air jet in Indonesia last October.
Both crashes involved the same model of plane: the Boeing 737 Max 8. Ethiopian Transport Minister Dagmawit Moges, who announced the findings on Sunday, said the government would release more detailed information within a month.
As Russell Lewis reported Sunday for NPR’s All Things Considered, the similarities involve an anti-stall system on both jets, designed to push the nose of the plane down if flight control systems sense a problem with low air speed. Both the planes appeared to ascend and descend erratically, suggesting the pilots struggled to maintain control.
“This is just one aspect of what’s expected to be a long and really lengthy investigation that could take several years,” said Lewis. “But it is another clue that seems to indicate that what brought down both jets seems to be related.”
“Aviation accidents are rarely the result of a single cause,” Lewis noted. “There are often many small things that lead to a crash, and that’s why these investigations take so long.”
Separately on Sunday, The Seattle Times reported that an analysis Boeing delivered to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regarding the safety of the plane’s new flight control system, called MCAS [Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System], “had several crucial flaws.”
The safety report came as Boeing was rushing to catch up to its competitor Airbus in 2015. Anonymous sources inside the FAA told the Times that the agency inappropriately delegated the airplane’s certification to Boeing employees.
The company told the Times there were “significant mischaracterizations” in its description of flaws in the analysis.
Read the complete story at NPR