The head of Ethiopian Airlines says he still believes in Boeing and US aviation despite the fatal March 10 crash of Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet that has generated a storm of controversy.
There had been reports of friction between Boeing and Ethiopian in the wake of the crash but group chief executive Tewolde GebreMariam said in a lengthy statement posted on the airline’s website Monday that the two “would continue to be linked well into the future”.
The statement came as The Wall Street Journal quoted GebreMariam as saying he believed a software change under the spotlight after the October crash of Lion Air flight 610 had also been activated in the Ethiopian aircraft.
READ: Boeing did not rush 737 MAX design
The Lion Air pilots battled the software, called the Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), after it reacted to an erroneous angle of attack data on the Lion Air plane and pushed down the nose of the jet.
However, they failed to follow an established procedure that would have deactivated it.
GebreMariam told the Journal he thought Boeing should have been more proactive informing airlines about the system and it should have made an angle of attack disagree alert a standard feature of the plane rather than an option.
“In retrospect, I would have expected them to have been more transparent on the MCAS, the technicalities of the MCAS, what it does and what it doesn’t do,” The Journal quoted him as saying. “And even after the Lion Air crash…more should have been done from the Boeing side in terms of disclosure, in terms of coming up with strong procedures, stronger than what they gave us.”
The prepared statement was more circumspect.
“At this time, I do not want to speculate as to the cause,’’ GebreMariam said.
“Many questions on the B-737 MAX airplane remain without answers, and I pledge full and transparent cooperation to discover what went wrong.”
The statement pointed to the long history between Ethiopian and Boeing.
It also said Ethiopian was proud of its association with US aviation and noted it was founded in 1945 with the help of Trans World Airlines.
“Let me be clear: Ethiopian Airlines believes in Boeing,’’ he said. “They have been a partner of ours for many years.
“More than two-thirds of our fleet is Boeing. We were the first African airline to fly the 767, 757, 777-200LR, and we were the second nation in the world (after Japan) to take delivery of the 787 Dreamliner.”
The airline executive also moved to head off suggestions the crash was linked to crew training, saying the airline went beyond the computer-based training required for pilots transitioning from older 737s to the new MAX.
“After the Lion Air accident in October, our pilots who fly the Boeing 737 Max 8 were fully trained on the service bulletin issued by Boeing and the Emergency Airworthiness Directive issued by the USA FAA,’’ he said.
“Among the seven Full Flight Simulators that we own and operate, two of them are for B-737 NG and the B-837 MAX.
“We are the only airline in Africa among the very few in the world with the B-737 MAX full flight Simulator. Contrary to some media reports, our pilots who fly the new model were trained on all appropriate simulators.”
“The crews were well trained on this aircraft.”
There are several US investigation into Boeing, the US Federal Aviation Administration and the certification of the MAX, including an audit by the US Department of Transportation.
The DoT has now announced a special committee of outside experts has been appointed to review the process.
The committee will initially be headed by retired Air Force General Darren McGrew and former Air Line Pilots Association president Lee Moak.
