The chief executive of Ethiopian Airlines stood by Boeing on Monday despite the crash of the carrier’s 737 Max 8 aircraft earlier this month and insisted its pilots had been “fully trained” to deal with plane’s updated software system. Tewolde Gebremariam said in a statement that the crew of doomed flight 302 had received training on the details in the service bulletins issued by Boeing and US safety regulators in the wake of a Lion Air crash of the same aircraft model in October. The pilots of flight 302 had been trained “on all appropriate simulators”, he added. “Let me be clear: Ethiopian Airlines believes in Boeing.
They have been a partner of ours for many years,” said Mr Gebremariam. The stall-prevention software in the 737 Max aircraft has become a focus of investigators after a preliminary report showed the crew of the Lion Air aircraft appeared to fight with the system before the plane crashed, killing 189 people on board.
The preliminary report found that a faulty sensor had triggered the automated anti-stall feature, known as MCAS. Boeing has been working with the US Federal Aviation Administration to return the Max 737 to commercial service after safety regulators grounded the aircraft, fearing similarities with the Lion Air crash. Norwegian Air Shuttle, the low-cost airline whose shares have been heavily hit by the grounding of the 737 Max, shelved plans to sell six other Boeing aircraft as part of plans revealed on Monday to try to minimise customer disruption.
Norwegian said it would use some of the larger Boeing Dreamliner planes on high-volume routes and also “wet lease” aircraft to cope. Europe’s third-largest low-cost airline has asked Boeing for compensation and said it was confident of “a constructive agreement”. The US aircraft manufacturer on Saturday hosted pilots from several American airlines to review proposed modifications to the anti-stall software as well as cockpit displays at its plant at Renton, Washington. The session included representatives from American, Southwest and United airlines, the three US carriers that fly the Max.
On Wednesday Boeing will host a second group of 200 pilots and officials from almost all the carriers that fly the Max. “This is part of our ongoing effort to share more details about our plan for supporting the safe return of the 737 Max to commercial service,” the company said in a statement issued late on Sunday. Mr Gebremariam said Ethiopian would work with investigators in Ethiopia, the US and elsewhere “to figure out what went wrong with flight 302”, which crashed minutes after take-off from Addis Ababa on March 10.
Additional reporting by Richard Milne in Oslo
