Boeing statement says company knew of 737 MAX safety problems before 2018 fatal crash
A new statement from Boeing indicates the company knew about problems with the 737 MAX the year before the deadly 2018 Lion Air crash.
The statement released Sunday by Boeing describes a troubling timeline that shows how long some at the company were aware of the problem before finally deciding to act.
Boeing says it didn't tell pilots and airlines that a safety alert on its 737 MAX jets was not working until after one of the planes crashed in Indonesia last year.
“For Boeing to say we didn’t know about this, or we didn’t tell the airlines about that for a year, this is just not a good evolving set of circumstances,” said Scott Hamilton, who is an aviation consultant with the Leeham Company.
Hamilton says this is not good news for Boeing, who in their statement said the plane was safe to fly without the safety alert.
“Boeing has claimed it’s not a safety in flight indicator – we now know this does not appear to be the case,” Hamilton said.
The safety alert, called an "angle of attack" indicator, tells pilots if a sensor is transmitting bad data. It was designed to warn pilots about the kind of sensor malfunction that occurred in the crash in Indonesia and five months later in Ethiopia.
Boeing says it only worked for some airlines who bought a separate optional feature.
“Why Boeing claims that it should only have been an option begs the question is safety an option at Boeing,” Hamilton said.
It’s not known if the lack of alert system caused the crashes of Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines planes, which killed 346 people.
Boeing hopes the MAX jets will be back in the sky before summer is over – the company says the alert will be standard.
