About a year ago, a Boeing 737 Max of low-cost airline Lion Air crashed in Indonesia, 189 people died. Before the machine crashed on the sea surface, the pilots had desperately tried to regain control of the machine. The accident was the tragic beginning of a gigantic scandal in the center since the new aircraft Boeing 737 Max, the group itself and the American air traffic control authority FAA stands.
On Friday, the long-awaited final report of the investigation of the Lion Air crash has now been published. According to the Indonesian investigative authorities, a number of reasons have led to a crash: according to the report, the experts recommend a technical redesign of the machine. In addition, the pilots would have to be better trained in the future. The news agency Reuters reported that the report is available.
Particularly problematic is the automatic control program Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), which was specially developed by Boeing for the 737 Max. This system leads to the automatic lowering of the nose of the aircraft in the event of a risk of stalling. The pilots can turn MCAS off again by means of two switches in the cockpit, but this did not happen during the accident flight.
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According to the report, one of the pilots, the first officer, was unfamiliar with the system. In addition, he had already had problems during the training with the machine.
In addition, an external sensor provided incorrect data. According to the report, he is said to have been incorrectly calibrated by a Florida repair shop, and he was probably not later tested by Lion Air maintenance personnel.
The report also complains that 31 pages are missing from the maintenance records of the airline. Lion Air has not responded to a request for these pages, reports Reuters.
US aviation authority in the criticism
Already on Wednesday, the investigators had presented the report to the relatives and explained that according to their investigations a design flaw was the cause of the accident and the pilots were trained too badly.
Previously, the US aviation authority FAA had also raised allegations against Boeing for alleged negligence in the approval of the 737 Max. The aircraft manufacturer had a document in which a technical leader had expressed negative about the flight characteristics of the 737 Max, already found months ago, the Ministry of Transport, however, submitted until late Thursday.
According to the technical chief pilot Mark Forkner years ago after test flights in a flight simulator complained about the poor flight characteristics of the 737 Max.
In addition to Boeing but also the FAA itself is advised by the 737 Max crashes in the criticism. A further crash of the same Ethiopian Airlines aircraft killed 157 people in April. In both accidents, a total of 346 people were killed.
