Minutes after take-off, the pilots of an Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max were caught in a bad situation.[PARIS] Minutes after take-off, the pilots of an Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max were caught in a bad situation.
The airline's youngest-ever captain, a 29-year-old with an impressive 8,100 hours flying time, and his rookie 25-year-old co-pilot may have gone against procedures by leaving the engines at full take-off power, according to data and other pilots.That and some other potential missteps may have left them unable to fight flawed Boeing software that eventually sent the jet into an uncontrollable dive, experts said after studying the data.
A sudden data spike suggests a bird hit the plane as it was taking off and sheared away a vital airflow sensor. Safety officials say aviation accidents are rarely pinned entirely on either pilots or their technology, and a timeline showed the crew fully engaged in trying to save the aircraft. The combination of excess speed and cutting off the system while the plane was still leaning downwards meant up to 50 pounds of force would be needed to move the control column, and moving the manual trim wheels was impossible.The captain called out"pull up" three times. The co-pilot reported problems to air traffic control.The bird strike and loss of airflow data would have affected airspeed information too.
"As pilots have told us, erroneous activation of the MCAS function can add to what is already a high-workload environment," Mr Muilenburg said."It's our responsibility to eliminate this risk. We own it and we know how to do it."As the nose gradually fell, the pilots turned to a last-resort device to adjust the plane's trim.
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