Boeing Defends 737 MAX Design Process, Sees Software Fix in Weeks
March 21 2019 - 8:24AM
Dow Jones News
By Robert Wall and Ben Otto
A senior Boeing Co. executive defended the company's aircraft
design and production processes in the wake of two fatal crashes of
its 737 MAX airliner, and said fixes to software linked to at least
one of those crashes should be ready within weeks.
Boeing's commercial plane marketing vice president, Randy
Tinseth, said he had "great confidence" in the 737 MAX and the
process by which Boeing devised the plane.
"I know the discipline and rigor of our design process. I know
the integrity of our production process," he said at an investors
briefing in London.
U.S. officials, including the Justice Department and the
Department of Transport's Inspector General, are scrutinizing steps
taken by Boeing and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, the
plane maker's principal regulator, to get the MAX into service.
Congress also has scheduled hearings.
These officials started looking at the plane's design process
after one MAX crashed in Indonesia in October, killing 189 people.
Investigators are focusing on the Lion Air plane's stall-prevention
system as having potentially played a role in the crashes. Boeing
has promised to roll out a software fix for the system. Mr. Tinseth
said Thursday that Boeing expected that fix to be approved by U.S.
regulators in weeks.
After another MAX, operated by Ethiopian Airlines, crashed in
March killing 157 people, aviation authorities around the world
cited similarities between the two crashes and grounded the
jetliner. The investigation into the Ethiopia crash has just
begun.
Mr. Tinseth said modifications are planned to both software and
training. "That includes changes in the control laws of the
airplane, an update of the displays, the flight manual as well as
the training. We are working closely with the (Federal Aviation
Administration) on that," he said.
Accident investigators have said the Lion Air plane suffered
erroneous sensor information that caused the stall-prevention
system to misfire, repeatedly pushing the nose of the plane down
during the 11-minute flight before all contact was lost. They have
also said they are looking at maintenance and cockpit crew
responses.
Crew flying the same MAX aircraft on a prior flight also
experienced the flight control malfunction. Indonesian accident
investigators said Thursday the crew overcame the problem. That
plane was flying with a third pilot qualified to fly the MAX in the
cockpit, who was hitching a ride while off-duty.
The Indonesian officials said the final accident report for the
Lion Air crash will likely be issued in August or September.
A senior Ethiopian aviation official Wednesday told The Wall
Street Journal the country had fast-tracked its probe and was
hoping to issue a preliminary report next week. U.S. air safety
experts and Boeing have supported both investigations.
Nurcahyo Utomo, head of the Indonesian safety committee's air
accident subcommittee, said Thursday that the Lion Air jet's
cockpit voice recorder--one of two black boxes recovered from the
jet's crash site on the ocean floor--revealed that the two pilots
of the final flight were calm at first, then seemed to panic when
it became clear they couldn't recover. He declined to go into
detail. The flight hit the water at high speed, disintegrating the
plane.
Write to Robert Wall at robert.wall@wsj.com and Ben Otto at
ben.otto@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 21, 2019 08:09 ET (12:09 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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