New reports suggest there are more similarities between the two crashes involving Boeing 737 Max airplanes, the latest of which happened less than two weeks ago.
According to those reports, engineers involved in evaluations of the Max 8 plane were well aware of flaws in the original report used to certify the model before it was approved to fly.
Current and former engineers for the company told The Seattle Times that the safety analysis allegedly “understated the power of the new flight control system, which was designed to swivel the horizontal tail to push the nose of the plane down to avert a stall,” ABC News writes.
The engineers, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also said the system “failed to account for” the fact that it would reset when a pilot intervened.
Boeing said in a statement the certification of its Max 8 and 9 models was done “in accordance with the identical FAA requirements and processes that have governed certification of all previous new airplanes and derivatives.”
The Seattle-based company added that the FAA “considered the final configuration and operating parameters of MCAS during MAX certification, and concluded that it met all certification and regulatory requirements.”
The Federal Aviation Authority noted in a statement of its own that there was no indication any of its personnel was “being pressured to speed up certification of the Boeing 737 MAX.”
The two statements come on the heels of reports that there were similarities between the Ethiopian Airlines crash and the Lion Air one last October.
Ethiopia’s Transport Minister Dagmawit Moges told journalists on Sunday that flight recorder data showed links between the two crashes, stressing that a report on the issue would be released in about a month.
The existence of similarities was also confirmed by BEA, the French aviation authority which is closely working with the Ethiopian investigators.
Boeing CEO Denis Muilenberg said they were “taking actions to fully ensure the safety of the 737 MAX” in light of these new reports.
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