Boeing pilots detected 737 nax flight control glitch 2 years before deadly crash

13:59 • 19.10.19
Science/tech

New evidence indicates that Boeing pilots knew about "egregious" problems with the 737 Max airplane three years ago, but federal regulators were not told about them.

Investigators say the plane's new flight control system, called MCAS, is at least partially to blame for 737 Max crashes in Indonesia in 2018 and Ethiopia this year that killed 346 people. Acting on data from a single, faulty angle-of-attack sensor, MCAS repeatedly forced both planes into nosedives as the pilots struggled, but failed to regain control, NPR reports.

The pilots in the Lion Air plane that crashed in Indonesia last October did not know MCAS existed, as Boeing did not disclose any information about it in pilot manuals or in training material.

Newly revealed instant messages sent between Boeing's then-chief technical pilot for the 737, Mark Forkner, and another technical pilot, Patrik Gustavsson, in November 2016 indicate that Forkner experienced similar problems with MCAS during a test session in a flight simulator.

In a transcript obtained by NPR, Forkner writes that "there are still some real fundamental issues" with the system that he says Boeing engineers and test pilots "claim that they are aware of."

As the two pilots banter back and forth in the messages, Forkner says the system is "running rampant in the sim on me," then adding, "I'm leveling off at like 4000 ft, 230 knots and the plane is trimming itself like crazy."

Forkner calls the problem "egregious" and writes that he had "basically lied to the regulators (unknowingly)" before experiencing the glitch, when he had told the FAA that MCAS was safe and did not need to be included in pilot manuals.

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