Boeing admits knowing of the 737 Max issues before two deadly crashes
Boeing admitted that it knew about a problem with its 737 Max jets a year before the issues caused two fatal accidents but did nothing to change it.
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The firm said it had inadvertently made an alarm feature optional instead of standard, but insisted that this did not jeopardise flight safety.
All 737 Max planes were grounded in March after the second crash of the model in just a few months killed 158 people in an Ethiopian Airlines flight. Five months earlier, 189 people were killed in a Lion Air crash.
The Angle of Attack Disagree alert which was the issue blamed for the crash was designed to let pilots know when two different sensors reported conflicting data.
This feature was meant to be standard to all planes but Boeing inadvertently only made it available for airlines that purchased an optional indicator. It said it would deal with the problem in a software update.
The US Federal Aviation Administration told Reuters news agency that Boeing had not informed it of the software issue until November 2018, a month after the Lion Air crash.
Boeing initially chose not to inform airlines insisting the AOA was not necessary for safe flight.
"In 2017, within several months after beginning 737 MAX deliveries, engineers at Boeing identified that the 737 MAX display system software did not correctly meet the AOA disagree alert requirements," the company said.
"Neither the angle of attack indicator nor the AOA Disagree alert are necessary for the safe operation of the airplane," Boeing said. "They provide supplemental information only, and have never been considered safety features on commercial jet transport airplanes."