PILOTS CLEARED
Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max pilots did everything they could to keep plane in the air – but couldn’t prevent mystery nosedives that caused deadly crash
THE pilots of the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft that crashed killing all on board were unable to prevent it repeatedly nosediving, a report has found.
Initial findings of the probe into the tragedy concluded the two pilots enacted all the correct procedures but couldn't control the plane as it performed the uncommanded actions.
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Ethiopia's minister of transport Dagmawit Moges said: "The crew performed all the procedures repeatedly provided by the manufacturer but was not able to control the aircraft."
She said the plane was performing "repetitive, uncommanded" nosedives prior to crashing soon after taking off from Addis Ababa airport en route to Nairobi, killing all 157 people on board, including nine Britons.
The initial report was based on data from doomed flight ET 302's black box recorders.
Investigators are looking at the role of an system known as MCAS which under some circumstances can lower the aircraft's nose to prevent an aerodynamic stall.
The world-wide fleet of 737 Max 8 aircraft remains grounded after MCAS was implicated in a fatal crash involving a Lion Air flight in Indonesia last October.
Ethiopian investigators didn't specifically mention the MCAS, but called on Boeing to review "the aircraft flight control system related to the flight controllability”.
They said this needs to be "adequately addressed" before the plane can return to service.
A more detailed report into the accident is expected to take several months but the preliminary findings indicate the focus will be aircraft control system, it was reported.
REPEATED NOSEDIVES
Ethiopian Airlines chief executive Tewolde GebreMariam said he was "very proud" of the pilots' "high level of professional performance".
"It was very unfortunate they could not recover the airplane from the persistence of nosediving," he said.
The initial report comes as it emerged the plane hit a mystery object just after take-off sending it plunging to the ground.
The plane reportedly suffered a damaged angle-of-attack sensor after hitting a bird or another foreign object - triggering false data prompting the pilots to turn off the MCAS.
However, that system was then re-engaged which pushed the plane downwards and led to it crashing into the ground, two aviation sources close to the investigation
The pilots tried to manually bring the nose of the jet back up before restoring power to the anti-stall system but they were not able to regain control of the passenger plane, it has been claimed
It is not clear why the crew would have went against Boeing's recommendations by reconnecting power to the MCAS system.
Earlier today, Boeing released a statement that said: "We urge caution against speculating and drawing conclusions on the findings prior to the release of the flight data and the preliminary report."
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What reportedly happened in the cockpit?
- An official told the Associated Press that data downloaded from the plane's black boxes indicates that the pilots followed recommendations by flipping two switches that disconnected the MCAS system.
- Sources told the Wall Street Journal that despite that step, the pilots could not make the plane climb.
- The pilots then reversed the power switches that they had turned off - a step which is not included in Boeing-approved recovery procedures.
- That reactivated MCAS and pushed the plane's nose down, the official told the AP.
- Boeing's procedures instruct pilots to leave the MCAS system disconnected and continue flying manually for the rest of the flight.
Details of the final moments of the doomed flight, which crashed more than three weeks ago, are finally beginning to emerge.
Soon after take-off - and about 450ft (137m) above the ground - the aircraft's nose began to pitch downwards.
French and American investigators are assisting in the ET 302 investigation and its possible link to issues in the Ethiopian flight and a Lion Air crash.
In both crashes, the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft struggled to maintain a steady flight path and repeatedly lost and gained altitude before entering a dive to the Earth's surface.
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One pilot, , said to the other "pitch up, pitch up!" before their radio suddenly died.
The paper - which says it's spoken to people close to the crash probe - says the information it has "paints a picture of a catastrophic failure that quickly overwhelmed the flight crew".
Last Thursday, Boeing announced changes to the control systems linked to the two 737 Max plane crashes which killed a total of 346 people.
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China orders its airlines to ground Boeing 737 MAX 8 jets following deadly Ethiopia Airlines crash
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