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The United States Orders the Suspension of All Flights of the Boeing Model and the Company Recommends the Same "as a Precaution"

Boeing, the world's largest aircraft manufacturer, on Wednesday recommended the temporary suspension of the operations of its entire model 737 MAX fleet, as a "precaution" after last Sunday's accident in Ethiopia.

By vince oathPublished 5 years ago 3 min read
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Several other airlines in Europe and US have also grounded the jet and thus piling pressure on Boeing to act. Photo: UGC Source: Twitter 

Boeing's announcement came shortly after US President Donald Trump announced that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) would "immediately" suspend the use of the 737 MAX aircraft models 8 and MAX 9 of Boeing.

In the statement, the company ratified its "full confidence" in the safety of the model, although it alleged that, after several consultations with US aeronautical and transport authorities, it decided to request that the 371 MAX planes operation be suspended.

"We are doing everything possible to understand the cause of accidents (...), implement security improvements, and help ensure that this does not happen again," said company president Dennis Muilenburg.

An Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX 8 plane crashed shortly after takeoff, which raised suspicions about a problem with the aircraft model given the similarities with another accident in October of the Indonesian company Lion Air.

"Any airplane that is currently in the air will go to its destination and, subsequently, will be left on land until further notice," president Trump announced.

The FAA, which held until Wednesday that the plane model was safe, explained in a tweet that new evidence from the site of the accident in Ethiopia "along with satellite data" led to the decision to suspend the operations of these planes.

He also indicated that the decision will remain in effect "until additional investigations are carried out," including the examination of the black boxes and voice recordings of the cabin of the aircraft damaged in Ethiopia.

The United States was the last country with fleets of 737 MAX to suspend its flights, after the plane crash last Sunday that left 157 dead.

Shortly before, Canada also announced that it would stop its 737 MAX from operating after a review of data from its experts found similarities between the two accidents.

The announcements from Canada and the United States joined a wave of countries that banned the use of this popular Boeing model.

Ethiopia and China were the first to make that decision, followed by other nations such as the United Kingdom, Australia, India, and blocks like the European Union.

On Wednesday morning, a report was leaked to local media detailing several complaints from US airline pilots about alleged flaws in the control mechanisms of the 737 MAX 8, similar to those that led to accidents in Ethiopia and Indonesia.

What is the problem with MAX?

The Ethiopian Airlines plane crashed only six minutes after takeoff, while Indonesia only five minutes later.

Flightradar24, an air traffic monitoring service, estimated that the planes registered problems in their speed and ability to maintain altitude.

The documents reveal that the pilots of the Indonesian airline reported that the autopilot had been activated only to make the plane lean down, which caused the warning system to alert of a potential fall.

Two other US pilots reported incidents related to this sensor "angle of attack" (which causes the nose of the plane to tilt to increase speed) and software connected to it called MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System).

That feature, which is new in the 737 MAX family, prevents the aircraft from pointing too steeply upward during takeoff, which could cause it to lose its control.

Nonetheless, if the documents presented in the US Aviation Safety Reporting System are anything to go by, the system apparently fails and requires an accelerated descent.

The mechanism is controlled automatically, so several pilots have assured that it is difficult to suspend the blockade to take manual control of the aircraft.

In the cases reported in the United States—which could be solved without major incidents—the pilots were forced to intervene to stop the plane from falling.

What is MCAS? The software of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 in the spotlight after the tragedy of Ethiopian Airlines.

The FAA, which provides safety certification for new aircraft, was under intense pressure after other aviation authorities around the world decided to ban the 737 MAX flights.

Now, what is interesting is what the American agency has said.

While the Civil Aviation Authority of the United Kingdom, for example, argued that its ban on MAX model flights was simply a precaution, the FAA has gone further.

The US regulator, which is involved in the investigation of the accident in Ethiopia, said it made its decision as a result of new tests compiled at the disaster site and analyzed on Wednesday, as well as satellite data.

That will sound the alarm bells at the Boeing headquarters in Seattle.

Since the accident, analysts have focused on the similarities between Sunday's tragedy and Indonesia's tragedy last October.

Has the FAA found evidence to suggest that these similarities are not superficial?

And does that mean that Boeing's MCAS anti-blocking system, already involved in the Indonesian accident, may also have played a role in the latest disaster?

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