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WIn three minutes of take-off, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 accelerated at unusually high speeds. Captain Yared Getachew knew that something was wrong because the plane, a Boeing 737 Max 8, had dipped irregularly and had climbed hundreds of feet. He called air traffic control to request his return to Addis Ababa airport.
He was allowed to come back and the aircraft started to turn right, climbing even higher. One minute later, flight 302 disappeared from the radar.
The 157 people on board were killed when the plane crashed 30 miles southeast of the airport, about six minutes after the start of its two-hour flight to Nairobi. It was the second fatal accident involving a Boeing 737 Max 8 in five months, after last October's crash of a Lion Air plane in Indonesia, which killed 189 people.
The suspicions about the cause of the two accidents are centered on the aircraft's new flight control system, the MCAS, or system of increasing maneuvering characteristics, which can intervene to lower the nose of the aircraft automatically as soon as its up.
On Wednesday, Boeing announced the suspension of operations for the entire global fleet of 371 aircraft after the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) imposed a temporary ban on the model. Dozens of countries had already imposed bans earlier in the week. The fleet will be immobilized until Boeing installs a software update of the flight systems of the aircraft, which could occur before the end of the month, according to a report last week.
As Boeing struggles to repair one of its most significant products, the impact on the world's most renowned aerospace group is now problematic. Accidents are devastating for Boeing as the 737 has been a critical part of its list for more than 50 years. It is the best seller of the company and a draft horse on short distances. The new version, the Max, is more fuel efficient than previous models and has logged more than $ 600 billion worth of orders. "This is a very important aircraft for Boeing, with 5,000 orders placed," said John Strickland, aviation badyst.
The Chicago-based group's manufacturers are likely to face tough months, with regulatory problems, lawsuits, and the threat of an accumulation of canceled orders. The crash last Sunday hit stocks hard as soon as the markets opened on Monday and wiped out $ 25 billion of its value over the past week.
One of the 302 flight engines, the second Boeing 737 Max 8 to go down. Photography: Jemal Countess / Getty Images
Boeing must now fight to maintain this important order book: several large customers have threatened to cancel their order after the crash. VietJet, which doubled its order to about $ 25 billion last month, said it would decide its plans once the cause of the tragedy would have been found. The companies Utair (Russia) and Kenya Airways, which could switch to the Airbus Airbus A320, rival could also put pressure on Boeing. Lion Air would also consider a $ 22 billion order for the 737.
One source said, "The commercial reality is that Boeing will offer all kinds of incentives to customers to persuade them to stay. If I know Boeing, it will be in the merger of the company that we are trying to solve this problem. You can see what this does for the stock price and the confidence of the pbadengers in the 737 Max. It's very difficult. But above all, his three big American customers – American, Southwest and United – stand behind the Max.
Despite the scale of the company's reputation and commercial crisis, many experts believe that Boeing will recover, because technical problems – albeit not as serious as the one the 737 Max apparently faces – have already been resolved. The FAA grounded the 787 Dreamliner in 2013 due to a fire problem, which was then repaired. "This has not had a long-term impact on customer confidence and has become a very successful aircraft," noted Strickland.
Regulators around the world put the 737 Max to the ground after concluding that there were too many similarities between the Addis Ababa disaster and the Lion Air Flight 610 crash. This also dropped from the sky shortly after takeoff: a preliminary investigation shows that pilots are struggling to take control of the aircraft after the nose has been forced through the flight control system.
The seeds of misery Boeing were sown in the winter of 2010. Airbus, his great European rival, surprised him by announcing that he was reviving his workhorse short distance with new engines like the A320neo.
Airlines had lobbied the two automakers for a more fuel-efficient aircraft after soaring oil prices in 2008, when a price of $ 147 a barrel had forced dozens of carriers into bankruptcy.
The A320neo has forced Boeing to retaliate by creating a refitted 737, with engines capable of delivering the fuel efficiency now required by their customers.
The 737 Max would do that, but not without some engineering witchcraft to help it install its new big engines under the wings. The American manufacturer has had to lengthen the nosewheel, add aerodynamic fins and use the technology to make it more efficient and less expensive to operate.
The engines may have solved one problem, but they created another one. Tests have shown that, under certain conditions, the aircraft could enter an aerodynamic stall in nose-up – where it could not create sufficient lift of the airflow over its wings .
Boeing attempted to solve the problem by installing the MCAS, which would stabilize the aircraft by dropping the nose. This system is now at the center of Lion Air 's crash investigation and appears to be involved in the Ethiopian Airlines disaster.
The Boeing Plant in Renton, Washington. Photography: Stephen Brashear / Getty Images
In December, the FAA issued an Airworthiness Directive to all owners of the 737 Max. She warned of a problem in which the automated anti-stall system would engage if "a single, erroneously high AOA" [angle of attack] the sensor input is received by the flight control system ". The system then automatically attempts to perform repeated dive commands. "If this condition is not resolved, the flight crew may have difficulty controlling the aircraft and result in an excessive dive attitude, significant loss of altitude, and loss of airworthiness. to a possible impact on the ground, "he said.
Automation has been strengthened to eliminate human error, which was traditionally the leading cause of aircraft accidents. Security expert David Gleave said: "Very few planes are falling from the sky because the wings are falling. Most of the time, this is linked to human error. Automation may go too far, but it is an additional security system that has been put in place to cure something and has caused a problem elsewhere … The introduction of new technologies has always been a problem. But people are not going to stop flying in the 737 because of that. "
Boeing executives will crave the patience of customers and investors. But they have to find a fix, and soon.
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