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Boeing Co. did not tell Southwest Airlines Co. or any other carrier, when they started flying its 737 MAX jets, that a safety feature found on previous models warned pilots of the malfunction sensors had been turned off, according to government officials and the private sector.
The safety inspectors of the Federal Aviation Administration and the supervisors responsible for overseeing Southwest, the largest customer of the 737 MAX, were also unaware of the change, officials said.
Alerts inform pilots if a sensor known as the "angle of attack pallet" is transmitting erroneous data on the nose of the aircraft. Accident investigators linked this erroneous data to the deadly crash of Ethiopian Airlines in March and Lion Air last year; the warning system was missing from both planes.
In the 737 MAX, which features a new automated stall prevention system called MCAS, Boeing made these alerts optional; they would only be operational if a carrier purchased a set of additional security features.
Southwest flight deck management and crews were not informed of the lack of an early warning system for more than a year after the launch of the aircraft in 2017, industry and government officials said. of the government. These and most other airlines operating the MAX only became aware of them when the Lion Air crash in October led to a careful review of the aircraft's new design.
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"Southwest textbooks were wrong" on the availability of alerts, said Southwest Pilots Union President Jon Weaks. As Boeing had not communicated the change to the carrier, the manuals reflected erroneous information, he said.
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