Boeing scrutinized about a safety feature on 737 Max jets

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• Boeing is coming under fire for allegedly failing to warn
  pilots and customers about a safety feature that could cause the
  plane to dive out of the sky.
• CNN reports that a top Lion Air official joined a US pilots’
  group in accusing Boeing, the maker of the 737 Max 8 that fell
  out of the sky into the Java Sea of failing to tell pilots about
  the potential danger of a new safety feature implicated in the
  disaster.
• One pilots’ group accused Boeing of failing to provide all
  the information needed to fly the plane.
• The search for victims of flight JT610 is over, but
  authorities are still seeking the second black box which records
  the final moments inside the cockpit.

A Lion Air official told CNN Wednesday, that Boeing’s manual for
its 737 MAX 8 model, the near-new passenger jet
that crashed 13 minutes after take-off from Jakarta last
month Java Sea last month, had nothing in it at all about a
critical feature that could trigger the plane to dive.

Lion Air’s operational director Zwingli Silalahi, said the manual
failed to alert pilots that the jet’s stall-prevention system
could, in certain near-stall situations, trigger an automated
response, that included lowering the airplane’s nose.

“We don’t have that in the manual of the Boeing 737 MAX 8,”
Zwingli said Wednesday.

“That’s why we don’t have the special training for that specific
situation.”

Air crash investigators are trying to determine if an external
sensor sent exactly this kind of erroneous data that could have
triggered the stall-prevention system.

Lion Air’s allegations appear to support comments made by the
Allied Pilots Association (APA) that allege Boeing withheld
information about the danger of the Max 8’s new features.

Lion Air Flight JT610 fell into waters off Jakarta on October 29,
killing all 189 on board.

Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
issued directives last week telling flight crews about the
system, which is designed to provide extra protection against
pilots losing control.

Boeing’s has since said that its safety bulletin was only meant
to reinforce existing procedures.

Subsequently many aviators, unions, and flight-training
departments began to realize that none of the documentation
including pilot’s manuals for the Max 8 included an explanation
of the system, according to the APA.

Indonesian investigators said on Monday that more training was
surely required for Boeing 737 MAX pilots after realizing the
in-flight situation now thought to have faced the crew of JT610
was not a part of Boeing’s flight manual.

Read more:

The Indonesian Lion Air flight JT 610 aircraft that crashed into
the Java Sea shortly after takeoff with at least 188 on board was
brand new and delivered to Lion Air just 2 months ago

Boeing

It’s all up in the air

US pilots were also not aware of potential risks, two US pilot
unions
told Reuters.

“We don’t like that we weren’t notified,” Jon Weaks, president of
the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, told
Bloomberg on Tuesday.

Both Lion Air and the APA have now rejected Boeing’s claim about
merely reinforcing existing procedures, describing the bulletin
as “enlightening” and in no way “reaffirming.”

“They (Boeing) didn’t provide us all the info we rely on when we
fly an aircraft,” Captain Dennis Tajer, an APA spokesman told
CNN.

According to Zwingli, Boeing’s bulletin did not call for any
special Max 8 pilot training.

“We didn’t receive any information from Boeing or from regulator
about that additional training for our pilots,” Zwingli said.

Zwingli said that if the result of the ongoing investigation —
conducted by Indonesia’s National Transportation Commission, the
US National Transportation Safety Board, and Boeing — found that
additional training was necessary, Lion Air pilots would
undertake it.

Boeing has said it will not “discuss specifics of an ongoing
investigation.”

Although the company did tell CNN that it had “provided two
updates for our operators around the world that re-emphasize
existing procedures for these situations.”

On Tuesday, the APA said while there were no immediate safety
concerns about the MAX 8 planes, “the fact that this hasn’t been
told to pilots before calls into question what other info should
we know about this aircraft.”

“What seems to have happened here is that a new version or a
modified anti-stall capacity was added which pushes the nose down
automatically, CNN aviation correspondent Richard Quest. said.

“If it’s true, it is beyond comprehension that Boeing did not
tell the airline and pilots about this.”

The FAA’s directive that advised pilots about how to respond to
similar problems impacts 246 Boeing 737 Max aircraft worldwide.

There are some 45 of these passenger jets run by US carriers.

Read more:

The US government has ordered airlines to instruct pilots flying
Boeing’s 737 MAX on how to handle the potentially deadly flaw
that may have caused the Lion Air crash

The angle of attack

Last week, investigators including Indonesia’s National
Transportation Commission, the US National Transportation Safety
Board, and Boeing said the angle-of-attack or AOA sensor that
helps determine if a plane will stall or dive had been replaced
the day before the incident, but problems remained.

The AOA sensor on the Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX 8 was replaced
after a flight from North Sulawesi to Bali, on October 28. During
a later flight to Jakarta that same day, pilots reported further
AOA problems.

The AOA sensor was replaced by a Lion Air technician in Bali
before the plane departed for Jakarta on its penultimate flight.

In the end, Lion Air’s almost-new Boeing 737 Max 8 jet
encountered difficulties on all of its final four flights, the
head of Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee, the
KNKT, Soerjanto Tjahjono said.

Lost and lost

Rescue
workers with a part of the plane’s wreckage that shows Lion Air’s
logo.
REUTERS/Stringer

Meanwhile authorities have still failed to get their hands on
JT610’s cockpit voice recorder (CVR), which may very well be
hidden under the muddy seafloor off Jakarta.

It is hoped the CVR could reveal what went down in the cockpit in
the final moments of the flight.

Investigators already have the flight data recorder (FDR), which
was found resting on the seafloor, on November 1.

The earliest analysis suggests there were problems with the
airspeed indicator on the past three flights before the crash.

The KNKT has indicated it will continue the search for the
still-missing cockpit voice recorder (CVR), the second black box
of the aircraft, with the help of Indonesia’s National Search and
Rescue Agency (Basarnas) divers.

It is thought this second device, which may yield up the final
moments inside the cockpit of flight JT610, could be buried deep
within the mud of the Java Sea floor.

Basarnas divers have already recovered the other black box, the
flight data recorder (FDR).

After almost two weeks in the waters off Jakarta, Basarnas
finally called off the search for difficult search for victims
over the weekend.

Basarnas had extended the search mission twice since the plane
dove into the sea last month.

The Jakarta Post
reports that Basarnas eventually recovered as many as 196 bags
containing human remains.

The victims’ families participated in a mass prayer on board two
Navy ships in the Java Sea last Tuesday.

As of Friday, there were 79 victims formally identified in total.