- Yesterday, an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8
crashed just six minutes after takeoff with no survivors.
All 149 passengers and eight crew members perished.
The aeroplane was just four months old.
This is not the first crash involving the Boeing 737 MAX 8.
Just four months ago, Indonesian Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX 8
crashed minutes after takeoff from Jakarta into the Java Sea.
All 189 passengers and crew perished.
So two back to back fatal crashes
that killed almost 350 people in just four months
has raised serious concerns regarding the safety
of the new Boeing 737 MAX family.
Let's quickly recap on what happened yesterday
on the Ethiopian 737 MAX flight.
The 737 MAX 8 was operating as Ethiopian Airlines 302
from Addis Ababa to Nairobi.
The registration of the plane was ET-AVJ
and it vanished from radio contact with ATZ
at around 8,600 feet, just six minutes after departure.
Flight radar 24 determined that vertical speed
was unstable during takeoff.
Ethiopian Airlines stated that the plane had had 1,200 hours of use
and was perfectly maintained.
- [Pilot] Just talked now with a friend of mine
who was actually flying on a triple 7 on Ethiopian.
He was on the holding point just behind them,
just before they took off.
Apparently, the only thing he told me
is that they took off normally
and whilst they were on the climb,
they declared an emergency
that they had unreliable air speed
and they couldn't control the aircraft.
That's the only thing that he told me for sure
because he was there and he was hearing the frequency
when they switched the frequency.
From there on, he doesn't know what happened,
but he said definitely a problem,
that the crew told the tower
that they had wrong air speed indications
and they couldn't control the aircraft.
I don't know what the (bleep) is going on
with that aircraft, man.
Software, I don't know.
I cannot imagine how experienced pilots,
even if it's air speed unreliable,
can lose control of the aircraft
if there's not any problem with any software,
you know, that's something that the pilot doesn't see,
but it's really sad, man, really sad.
- From what we have gathered so far,
it seems like the sensors had been disagreeing
with each other, causing unreliable air speed,
which triggered and activated the MCAS system
to lower the nose of the aeroplane for a dive.
We have to wait for a further investigation
to be able to come to that conclusion, but what is MCAS?
- [Captain] MCAS is a new system installed
on the Boeing 737 MAX aircrafts
because of the rigour and lower engine on the aeroplane.
When the pilot inputs more power on the engine,
it creates a higher nose-up altitude.
What MCAS does is, it trims the aircraft
to the nose-down position to prevent stalling conditions.
The system is completely independent of pilot input
and there's no mention of the system
in any of the pilot manuals.
On the 737, we have electric trim motors
and we also have manual a trim wheel to trim the aircraft.
It is still too early to say
what was the cause of the crash,
but one of the possibilities can be MCAS
was trying to trim the aircraft down,
but pilots did not deactivate the cut-out
suggested for the electric motors,
which they were supposed to do.
Again, it is still too early to say.
- Four months ago on October 29th, 2018,
Indonesian Lion Air Flight JT610 took off from Jakarta.
Within 13 minutes, it reported difficulty
and plunged into the Java Sea.
- [Reporter] Investigators say the pilots
of the doomed flight struggled to keep the plane
in the air, pulling the nose up,
as the plane's computers pushed it into a fatal dive.
- The computer introduced a nose-down command
and the pilots fought it.
They're trying to maintain altitude,
the computer continues and the computer, at this point,
has a more powerful flight control
and eventually the pilots lose the battle.
- [Reporter] Investigators believe one
of the plane's sensors, like this one,
was sending bad data, suggesting the plane
was flying too slowly.
The computers pushed the nose forward
to pick up speed and avoid a stall.
Investigators say that same sensor was replaced
just the day before after air speed indicators
malfunctioned on previous flights.
- Of course, without proper further investigation,
it is pure speculation to suggest that
the two fatal crashes were caused by the same thing.
However, from the flight data available,
we can see correlations.
Both aircraft were climbing and then rapidly descending
with unstable vertical speed.
With so many factors coming in to play
when an accident happens, such as human error,
not following the procedure, mechanical error,
the sensor error, aircraft design error,
we can't rule anything out at this stage.
It is important to stress that until an investigation
is complete, there's no immediate subject to blame.
Following the two crashes on the 737 MAX,
many airlines in the world have been taking precautions.
The FAA on the 11th of March
said that they have not received enough evidence
to ground the Boeing 737 MAX fleet in the U.S.
The Civil Aviation Authority in China
has ordered all airlines in China operating the 737 MAX
to ground the plane immediately.
According to Bloomberg's estimate,
the 737 accounts for nearly one third of Boeing's revenue
and will generate profits of nearly 30 billion dollars annually
when production is raised to 57 aircraft per month.
The 737 MAX is Boeing's fastest selling plane.
As of January 31st, 2019, the 737 MAX has accumulated
more than 5,100 orders with more than 350 in service
with 38 operators worldwide.
Last July when I was in Seattle, I was given a tour
of the Boeing 737 MAX factory in Renton.
- [Employee] So, our fuselages come in
from Wichita, Kansas by rail.
You may have seen them as you guys drove in.
Once they arrive,
they're basically just an empty green shell.
We wash that coating off when we start the paint process
and so, fuselage arrives, we'll pull it up here
and in the overnight hours,
you'll see the yellow cranes at the top here.
The cranes will move up, they'll pick up the fuselages
and the first three days they spend in that structure,
we call it systems installation.
It's basically where the aeroplane gets its guts,
a lot of the electrical, venting, panelling
goes on in those initial phases.
And then on the fourth day, the crane comes back,
drops the aeroplane into this position in the corner,
which is called wing to body join.
And that's where it finally starts to look like an aeroplane.
The tail gets put on, the wings get put on,
the landing gear gets attached in that position.
Once all that happens, the aeroplane comes up,
takes a turn and starts moving down the line,
so the aeroplane that's closest to the door down there
is the one that's ready, the furthest along,
and it'll go out, once it gets its engines,
it goes out to the paint hanger.
- What's the difference between the current NG,
the new generation 73, and the MAX 73?
- Sure.
So Sam, the MAX has a few unique differences
that sets it apart from the NG.
The most important is the larger new CFM LEAP-1B engine,
that 69 inch fan diameter.
That new engine is a lot more efficient and quieter.
Some other features you'll notice
are the advanced technology winglet
with the up and downwards-- - [Sam] Oh yeah.
- [Employee] Shape. - [Sam] Yep.
- And then the other is the APU has a redesigned tail cone.
We've eliminated the vortex generators on the aft tail
and if you look really closely,
you might see that 20 centimetre rise on the nose wheel
and then inside, all MAXs have Boeing Sky Interior,
which a lot of customers prefer.
- [Sam] Yeah.
- Over a non-Sky Interior.
- I have also been given a 737 MAX cockpit tour
during the Farnborough Airshow.
The cockpits show similarity to the 787
with large information display screens.
- What you're looking at here,
one of the really cool things about the aeroplane,
is 787 primary flight displays.
You can see really high resolution displays.
What we're doing is providing great information
to the flight deck, to the flight crews,
and also provisioning the aeroplane
for this next generation of air traffic management
and flight operations functionality.
- Now as a math geek, one thing I noticed,
the angle of attack on climbing on the 737 MAX
is definitely shallower than the other plane.
On the other hand, the CFM LEAP-1B engine
is one of the quietest engines I've experienced on takeoff.
(plane engine humming)
I have flown on several 737 MAX models
and my experience was very pleasant on them.
I have flown on the 737 MAX 8 on American Airlines,
Oman Air and Flydubai and also,
I've flown on the Copa Air 737 MAX 9.
They have a lay flat seat, as well.
Personally, I enjoy flying on the MAX aircraft
because it's quieter in the cabin
and also, the airline typically invests
in better seats on the new aircraft.
So, is the Boeing 737 MAX a safe aeroplane to fly?
I think this is rather a question mark
than a conclusion right now.
We are all waiting to hear more
from the crash investigation.
There are many questions that need to be answered.
This is news just in today.
On March 12th, Boeing has confirmed they will deploy
a flight control software update on the 737 MAX.
This update includes an update
to the MCAS flight control log, operation manual,
crew training and the flight display.
So Boeing indicated that the enhanced flight control log
incorporates the AOA, which is the angle of attack input,
and that also limits the stabiliser trims
in case of an error reading the angle of attack.
Here I am sending my deep condolences
to all the family and friends of the victims
who perished in those two tragic crashes.
Boeing has postponed the 777X launch date.
It was originally scheduled to be tomorrow
and I was supposed to be in Seattle.
I think this is a positive move by Boeing;
rather than celebrating another milestone,
let's get focused and get to the bottom
of the cause of the accident to make the sky more safe.
Thank you for watching.