Ethiopian Airlines believes in Boeing

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The boss of Ethiopian Airlines said that he "still believed in Boeing" despite a crash involving the American 737 Max plane, which claimed the lives of 157 people.

Tewolde Gebremariam said: "Despite the tragedy, Boeing and Ethiopian Airlines will continue to be linked in the future."

In addition, Mr. Tewolde also said that the anti-stall system of the aircraft was triggered before the disaster.

This feature appeared as a problem in another crash of the Boeing 737 Max.

In a statement outlining the close ties between Ethiopian and US airlines, Tewolde said: "Let's be clear: Ethiopian Airlines believes in Boeing and they have been our partner for many years."

He also stated that more than two thirds of his fleet was made up of aircraft manufactured by Boeing.

Ethiopian Airlines also ordered 25 additional Max 737 aircraft from Boeing after taking delivery of five of these aircraft.

Last week, Garuda Indonesia had announced its intention to cancel its order for 49 Boeing 737 Max 8 after stating that its customers had "lost confidence" in the plane.

Boeing has received 5,012 orders for its 737 Max aircraft, of which 376 have been delivered to date.

A team of experts, made up of representatives of the Ethiopian Ministry of Transport, examines the black box data found at the scene of the accident on March 10, near Addis Ababa.

This is the second fatal incident involving a Boeing 737 Max in less than five months after the crash of a Lion Air plane in Indonesia last October, killing 189 people.

All Boeing 737 Max aircraft are grounded.

& # 39; Transparency & # 39;

Meanwhile, Mr. Tewolde told The Wall Street Journal that an anti-stall system in the aircraft, called the Maneuvering Characteristic Strengthening System (MCAS), appeared to have been activated before his crash.

When he stated that he did not have access to the flight data recorder or the badpit voice recorder found after Flight 302, he stated that he had listened to communications between the post Pilotage and control tower of Addis Ababa.

Boeing is currently preparing a software patch for the system, which must be approved by the US Federal Aviation Administration. It is designed to prevent the aircraft from heading upwards with too much angle, which could cause it to lose its lift.

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During the Lion Air accident, it was discovered that the system had pushed the nose of the plane several times before the impact.

Mr Tewolde told the newspaper that Boeing should have "more transparency" about MCAS, a new feature of the Max airplane that started flying commercially in 2017.

"And even after the crash of Lion Air … it would have been necessary to do more things on behalf of the Boeing in terms of disclosure, strict procedures, stronger than the ones they gave us."

Boeing announced that it would hold an "information session" Wednesday with pilots, operators and regulators to discuss software updates and training for the 737 Max.

It also seems that a preliminary report based on data from the Ethiopian Airlines black boxes could be released as early as this week.