US pilots: Boeing didn’t warn of 737 feature tied to crash

Bloomberg

Two US pilots’ unions say the potential risks of a safety feature on Boeing Co.’s 737 Max aircraft that has been linked to a deadly crash in Indonesia weren’t sufficiently spelled out in their manuals or training.
Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration issued directives telling flight crews about the system, which is designed to provide extra protection against pilots losing control. That prompted aviators, unions and training departments to realise that none of the documentation for the Max aircraft included an explanation of the system, the union leaders said.
“We don’t like that we weren’t notified,” said Jon Weaks, president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association. Dennis Tajer, a 737 captain and spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association at American Airlines Group Inc., said his union’s members were also concerned.
The complaints from pilot union leaders at Southwest Airlines Co. and American are significant because of the size of those carriers’ 737 fleets and their Max purchases. Southwest is the largest operator of the 737 Max and has the most on order with 257 of the jets yet to be delivered. American, the world’s largest airline, has outstanding orders for 85 of the planes.
“This is not about silos and layers of bureaucracy, this is about knowing your airplane,” Tajer said. “We will always be eager and aggressive in gaining any knowledge of new aircraft.”
A bulletin from APA to American’s pilots said details about the system weren’t included in the documentation about the plane. “This is the first description you, as 737 pilots, have seen,” it said.
“The companies and the pilots should have been informed,” Weaks said.
Boeing said it is confident in the safety of the 737 Max family of jets. “We are taking every measure to fully understand all aspects of this incident, working closely with the investigating team and all regulatory authorities involved,” the company said in a statement by email.
“Safety remains our top priority and is a core value for everyone at Boeing.”
Few details have been released about the underlying causes of the Lion Air crash October 29 in the sea near Jakarta, but Indonesian investigators say that an erroneous sensor prompted the plane’s computers to push the aircraft into a steep dive. A new safety measure added on the Max models to prevent pilots from losing control is what caused the plane to point downward, according to the FAA and Boeing. A long-standing procedure taught to pilots could have halted the dive, according to the regulator and the manufacturer. The FAA ordered airlines to add an explanation into flight manuals.
Indonesia’s National Transport Safety Committee is continuing to search for the plane’s crash-proof cockpit voice recorder under the sea, it said. The investigative agency plans to release a preliminary report between November 28 and 29, a month after the crash, as mandated by international treaty.
The FAA, which certified the plane, said in a statement it couldn’t comment on the matter while the investigation in Indonesia remains open. The FAA’s emergency directive required that US carriers revise flight manuals and said the agency “will take further action if findings from the accident investigation warrant.”
While the design of the Max has been under a spotlight since the accident, other factors in the crash could eclipse it in importance. They include questions about how maintenance was performed after problems arose on at least three prior flights of the Lion Air jet and the actions of the pilots on its last flight.
When Boeing designed its latest version of the 737, it added the new safety feature to combat a loss of lift, which is a
leading contributor to the loss-of-control accidents that by far cause the most crash deaths around the world.