The Ethiopian Airlines chief executive, Tewolde Gebremariam, has said he believes the software intended to prevent Boeing 737 MAX aircraft from stalling in flight had been activated aboard Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 shortly before the plane crashed.
The Boeing 737 Max 8 plane crashed on Sunday, March 10, just minutes after taking off from Addis Ababa to Nairobi killing all 157 people on board.
During an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Gebremariam said that “to the best of our knowledge,” the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) for stall prevention was active at the time of the crash.
The MCAS was introduced to compensate for the new position of engines on the 737 Max model. The system automatically forces the nose of the plane down to prevent stalling.
The Ethiopian Airlines CEO reportedly did not share anything about the details he had received that led to his conclusion. However, he did acknowledge that it would be a daunting task for Boeing to restore trust in the 737 MAX aircraft’s safety, and he was critical of Boeing’s failure to do more to inform airlines of the changes in operation related to MCAS when it was introduced.
“In retrospect I would have expected them to have been more transparent on the MCAS, the technicalities of the MCAS, what it does and what it doesn’t do,” he said.
The CEO said after the first 737 MAX crash in Indonesia, Boeing should have taken more concrete steps in terms of disclosure, in terms of coming up with strong procedures, stronger than what Boeing offered to Ethiopian Airlines.
In an official statement released by Ethiopian on Monday, GebreMariam said he did not want to yet speculate on the cause of the Ethiopian crash as investigation was well underway.
Despite the crash, he said the airline still has faith in Boeing.
“Let me be clear: Ethiopian Airlines believes in Boeing,” the CEO noted. “They have been a partner of ours for many years.”
