Damning New Evidence In Boeing’s 737 MAX Response

Boeing is facing new scrutiny over its handling of the 737 MAX MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System) situation. The New York Times (NYT) reported today (October 9) it has uncovered emails supporting claims that Ethiopian Airlines’ chief pilot reached out to the manufacturer in late 2018  with an “urgent” request for information a month after the MCAS-related crash of a Lion Air 373 MAX in Indonesia, but Boeing declined to respond. Three months after the chief pilot’s request, an Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX crashed shortly after takeoff killing all 157 on board. The main cause of the accident was determined to be a failure of the MCAS related to a faulty angle-of-attack sensor.

The U.S. Airline Pilots Association union (ALPA) supports the airline in its claim, citing that after the Lion Air crash, Boeing had proactively reached out to U.S. airlines and pilots to explain technical MCAS safety issues, such as how the system interacts with angle-of-attack data. Boeing 737 MAX pilot Dennis Taier, ALPA’s spokesman, said, “Who knows what [Ethiopian Airlines] would have done with the information, but not having it seals the deal. Any information given the Ethiopian pilots, like we had, could have made the difference between life and death.”

The December 2022 Ethiopian aviation authority’s accident report read, in part, “The investigation found the questions raised by the airline to be safety critical, and if Boeing had answered the questions raised by the training department either directly or indirectly [the accident might not have happened].”

Boeing’s claim that it was prohibited from discussing details of the MCAS technology with Ethiopian Airlines was based on Annex 13 established by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to address crash investigations. One of the elements of Annex 13 is that it is meant to provide safety information but is also designed to avoid establishing blame in accidents. Boeing claimed that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) supported its decision not to share information with Indonesian Airlines based on the Annex 13 provision. But former NTSB Chair Jim Hall said of Annex 13, “I am not aware of any incidents where that article has been used to prevent the transfer of critical safety information.”