Boeing’s 737 MAX aircraft problems, which have crashed twice and killed 346 people, have experienced at least six air emergencies and dozens of landings during the year after a large probe allowed them to fly. .
Key points:
- The 737 MAX crashed in Indonesia in 2018 and Ethiopia in 2019
- The U.S. aviation safety researcher has now confirmed that he did not investigate Boeing’s alleged production problems after the crashes.
- Virgin Australia has commissioned 29 of the MAX aircraft
The incidents, extracted from the U.S. government’s aviation safety databases, are among more than 60 mid-flight problems reported by pilots during the 12 months following the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recertify the airworthiness of the aircraft by the end of 2020.
Former Boeing and FAA employees described the reports, which included engine stops and pilots who partially lost control of the plane, as serious and with potential to end in tragedy.
In an incident in December 2021, a United Airlines pilot testified one day in May after the system controlling the passage and altitude of the aircraft began to malfunction.
An ABC investigation may also reveal that the U.S. government will announce a new audit that will examine Boeing’s production oversight of 737 MAX aircraft.
In an email obtained by ABC Investigations, the U.S. aviation safety investigator, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said the U.S. Department of Transportation (DoT) inspector general’s office would conduct what he described as work of “vital importance.”
“Office of the Inspector General of the DoT [has] confirmed … that Congress requested an audit of Boeing’s production oversight and that the production review of the 737 MAX will be part of that audit, ”the NTSB email said.
Boeing assembles 737 MAX aircraft at its factory in the Seattle suburb of Renton. (ABC News: Tim Myers)
Virgin Australia, which declined to comment on the new data, has commissioned four of the same MAX-8 model that has crashed twice, and 25 of a newer MAX-10 model, which has yet to hit the skies.
The two disaster planes were less than four months old and all MAX aircraft are manufactured at the Boeing factory in Seattle.
The first accident was a Lion Air flight that sank in Indonesian waters in October 2018.
In March 2019, a MAX plane operated by Ethiopian Airlines crashed 6 minutes after the takeoff of the capital Addis Ababa.
Indonesian Navy personnel in the Java Sea are trying to recover the wreckage of the Lion Air crash, which killed 189 passengers and crew. (AP: Tatan Syuflana, archive photo)
Aircraft investigators’ reports pointed to a malfunction caused by the MAX’s flight control software system known as MCAS, in both crashes. Boeing was prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice and paid $ 2.5 billion ($ 3.5 billion) in fines and damages after it was discovered he had misled authorities about the complexities of the system and removed references to the MCAS from the its pilot training manual.
All MAX aircraft around the world were landed after the second crash when a 20-month safety review was conducted.
But in April last year, five months after being allowed to fly again, 100 MAX aircraft were withdrawn from service again after the discovery of an electrical failure in the cockpit that resulted in the loss of critical flight functions.
Boeing told ABC that it traced the problem to a change in production processes at its Utah plant.
Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed 6 minutes after takeoff and killed 157 people. (AP: Mulugeta Ayene, archive photo)
Now, an ABC investigation has uncovered dozens of other mid-flight incidents on MAX aircraft during the plane’s first year of return to service.
Data from the safety report was extracted from the FAA service difficulty reporting system, as well as from anonymous reports sent to NASA’s aviation safety information system.
Pilots reported air emergencies at least six times last year, including a United Airlines flight en route to Houston, Texas in October, which was not in the database.
The MAX’s flight control system also failed on 22 separate flights, the same problem identified on the two planes that crashed.
More than 42 incidents involved equipment malfunction and, on more than 40 occasions, flight crews chose to land the affected aircraft while the problems were resolved.
In an incident on an American Airlines flight in April last year, several systems, including the two autopilot functions, stopped operating shortly after takeoff.
On landing, the crew found that the safety power supply unit, considered vital for a safe flight, had failed and emitted a strong electrical odor.
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Another report from NASA’s system detailed how in December an aircraft had “several system failures” and suddenly lost altitude when the plane’s nose tilted down and its speed changed rapidly. The crew could not give an explanation.
Some planes also had a multitude of problems. An Alaskan Airlines MAX-9 was grounded seven times for five months due to a malfunction of its navigation or communication equipment.
A Boeing spokeswoman told ABC that “none of the reports indicate a trend.”
“In fact, the in-service reliability of the 737 MAX is consistent with other commercial aircraft models,” the spokeswoman said.
“Since November 2020, the 737 MAX has flown more than 1.5 million flight hours on more than 580,000 revenue flights. The vast majority of these flights have been flown without incident.”
Virgin is scheduled to receive delivery of its aircraft next year.
The Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) told the ABC in a statement that it could not respond to incidents reported to the FAA, because they were within FAA jurisdiction, unless the incidents they involve an Australian plane or pilot.
“The FAA addresses unsafe conditions in U.S.-designed aircraft by issuing airworthiness directives that are mandatory for those aircraft operating in Australia,” CASA said in its statement.
“Any new aircraft type and model must receive a type-acceptance certificate from CASA before it can operate in Australia. Type-certificate holders provide airworthiness and safety documentation as part of this process. “.
Virgin Australia ordered 29 of the MAX aircraft to replenish its fleet after it abandoned the aircraft during the pandemic. (ABC News: John Gunn, archive photo)
The problems “could lead to tragedy,” says a former Boeing employee
Boeing senior manager Ed Pierson, who worked at the 737 MAX factory in Seattle between 2015 and 2018, said many of the incidents on the 28 aircraft identified in the dataset were “serious under the right circumstances. “and” they could cause tragedy. ” .
“There are a lot of similarities between what we’re seeing in some of the reports with what happened during those two accidents,” he said.
In 2019 he told the U.S. Congress about the “incredible pressures” workers face to meet demands at the Boeing plant and has come forward again because he fears history will repeat itself.
Ed Pierson says he raised concerns with Boeing about the safety of the 737 MAX before the Lion Air crash. (ABC News: Tim Myers)
The ABC called for an independent analysis of the safety reports of former pilots and accident investigators.
They warned that the data is only incident-related in the United States and may not indicate problems for the entire fleet.
Kwasi Adjekum, an assistant professor of aviation at the University of North Dakota and a former air crash researcher, identified seven of the air emergencies as very serious and said Boeing had cut boundaries with the MAX design and had suffered from persistent manufacturing problems. .
But he said the high number of electrical failures reported to MAX aircraft could be explained by the degradation of wiring and components while the aircraft was stored for up to 20 months.
“It can take a long time to conclude that there are serious system defects in a type of aircraft that goes back to an original equipment manufacturer that uses localized or limited data like this. It could also be a problem with practices / operator maintenance procedures. ”He said.
Boeing says the reliability of the 737 MAX is consistent with other commercial aircraft models. (Flickr: Paul Thompson)
Guido Carim Jr., a senior professor of aviation at Griffith University, said some of the incidents in the dataset were not uncommon, such as errors related to communication equipment and antifreeze valves, and pilots were trained to deal with them. as they arose.
“These incidents can become a problem, but these equipment breakdowns are not a concern for me because they all have layoffs,” he said.
However, he said the incidents related to flight control and stabilizers, which help control the rotation of the plane, were “very, very serious.”
He said some other reports raised by the ABC were bizarre, such as an incident related to a United Airlines flight last August where fuel was found leaking into a top passenger container. Fuel reserves are in the wings.
“I had never seen it before,” Dr. Carim Jr. said.
Pierson has been working with the families of the crash victims to call for a more thorough investigation into Boeing’s troubled production history and its misleading practices about its safety compliance.
The 24-year-old daughter of Nadia Milleron and Michael Stumo, Samya, was on her way to Uganda to work in public health when she died in the Ethiopian Airlines crash.
Nadia Milleron and Michael Stumo fear the 737 MAX will remain unsafe. (ABC News: Tim Myers)
The couple has campaigned to land the planes, believing the authorities did not thoroughly examine all the causes of the two crashes.
“There have been numerous air emergencies that are documented in the United States … and we don’t even know the ones that are on the international stage,” Milleron said.
“It is completely …