![]() Trim is a control function at the heart of the two 737 Max accidents, though it's not well understood outside of the aviation world. The switches rotate the wing-like horizontal stabiliser on the tail. When MCAS activated on the Ethiopian flight, the pilots stopped using thumb switches on their control yokes to adjust - or "trim" - the up-and-down angle of the plane's nose. MCAS is even the subject of a criminal probe. The fact that it can be triggered by the failure of only one of the two sensors that measure the plane's pitch relative to oncoming air has also drawn criticism. MCAS has since become the focus of investigations over whether Boeing and regulators erred by not telling pilots about it. Boeing said it added the now-infamous feature to the Max in an effort to duplicate the feel of earlier 737 models. a flight-control feature known as Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System or MCAS began driving down the nose. ![]() Leaving the throttles so high is never done on a normal flight and their jet rapidly accelerated to dangerous levels that made it harder to control.Īt 8:40:00 a.m. Jetliners are designed to use full power for only short periods during takeoff and shortly afterward. The startled pilots left the plane's engines racing at nearly full power, an error that would make it harder to recover. That triggered a loud stall warning on the captain's side of the cockpit and also threw out of whack speed and altitude readings on his instruments. Something - possibly a bird - slammed into a sensor on the left side of the plane, prompting it to erroneously conclude its nose was pointed 75 degrees above the onrushing air. The onslaught of alarms began seconds later. The flight took off in light winds with a few scattered clouds at 8:38:39 a.m. This description of the battle between pilots and the machine on Flight 302 is based on the Ethiopian Ministry of Transport preliminary report on April 4 and interviews with safety consultants, former investigators and several people familiar with the probe who asked not to be identified. Transport Minister Dagmawit Moges in April said they followed "all the procedures repeatedly." Airline Chief Executive Officer Tewolde GebreMariam has bristled in interviews over implications that the crew didn't perform properly.īoeing and a spokesman for the airline didn't respond to requests for comment. The plane then pitched nose-down violently and the pilots couldn't respond.Įthiopian government officials and the airline have steadfastly defended the pilots. Unable to restore control with the wheel, the pilots made the fatal decision to abandon the Boeing procedure designed to address their emergency. It's an issue that the crash's investigators will almost certainly want to explore in depth, safety advocates say. The inability of the Ethiopian Airlines pilots to use the wheels - safety experts argue over whether it was more the result of Boeing's design or pilot actions - is a critical part of what led to the crash that killed 157 people and the subsequent grounding of Boeing's best-selling model. On Flight 302, the jet hit the ground at 575 mph (925 km/h) after a dive so severe that mobile phones and other loose items in the plane would have slammed against the ceiling with twice the force of gravity.
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