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Boeing said Monday in a statement that the feature was not working on some of its aircraft because it was mistakenly linked to an optional feature, the Angle of Attack Indicator (AOA).
"The Disagreement Alert was supposed to be a stand-alone feature on MAX aircraft, but the Disagreement Alert was not operational on all planes because the feature was not activated as planned, "he said. "Unless an airline opted for the angle indicator of attack, the disagreement alert was not operational."
The AOA indicator allows pilots to know if any of the AOA sensors are not working. The "disagree" alert indicates if the sensors contradict each other. Boeing said that the alert function was not necessary for the safety of aircraft operation.
Some Boeing customers said that the company was not as transparent as it should have been about the warning system.
"Prior to the Lion Air event, AOA's flagship lighthouses were described as functioning (and not optional) by Boeing on all Max aircraft," said Southwest spokeswoman Michelle Agnew.
Boeing defended his practices on Monday.
But this statement marks the first time that the company recognizes an error in the deployment of its 737 Max.
"We have not yet seen any technical flaws or blunders with regard to the fundamental design and certification of the approach," he said.
He also suggested that in both fatal accidents, the pilots did not "follow" fully the procedures described by Boeing to avoid any malfunction.
Boeing declined to comment further on the issue.
The most important change made to the MCAS software in this update is the addition of data from a second AOA sensor, which measures the horizontal tilt of the aircraft. During its first iteration, the software only extracted data from an AOA sensor.
Boeing says he's going to make sure that the "Disagreement Alert" system can be used on all 737 Max aircraft.
Greg Wallace, Chris Isidore and David Shortell contributed to this report.
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