New York, – Boeing said on Sunday that it is close to completing the software update of its 737 MAX 8 model to correct errors that have occurred in its automatic flight control system, the company said in a statement on the completion of a week of the plane crash of Ethiopia.
“While researchers are still working to establish definitive conclusions, Boeing is finalizing the development of the previously announced software update and the review of pilot training,” company president and CEO Dennis Muilenburg said in a statement.
The text indicates that the measures respond to the “behavior of the MCAS flight control system due to the erroneous contribution of the sensors”.
Boeing also said that safety is “their highest priority in the design, manufacture and assistance” of their aircraft, and stressed that after any accident, “the design and operations of aircraft are examined” and “when appropriate, they introduce updates to further improve security. “
The aircraft manufacturer also noted that they continue to provide technical assistance at the request of the US National Transportation Safety Council, the US representative who works with Ethiopian researchers.
The Boeing statement comes hours after Ethiopian transport minister Dagmawit Moges gave a signal at a press conference that the probable cause of the accident was a technical problem with the 737 MAX 8 model.
Moges announced that the preliminary report of the analysis of the black boxes of the Ethiopian Airlines plane, which left 157 dead, has “clear similarities” with those of the Lion Air aircraft that crashed in October in Indonesia.
“Clear similarities were found, although it is too early to give a conclusive verdict,” Moges said at an emergency press conference held on Sunday in Addis Ababa.
The minister did not specify what those similarities are and said they will be “the subject of future investigations,” although she said that the results are expected to be released in thirty days.
This press conference was held after Ethiopia received information from France on flight ET302, which crashed a week ago shortly after taking off from Addis Ababa bound for Nairobi.
The Ethiopian Airlines pilot of the damaged aircraft reported “flight control” problems after takeoff and requested an airstrip to return to the Addis Ababa airport.
On October 29, 2018, another Boeing 737 MAX 8 of the Indonesian company Lion Air crashed into the Java Sea minutes after taking off from Jakarta with 189 occupants.
Boeing, which paralyzed the deliveries of the 737 MAX 8 model last Thursday, has accumulated losses of more than 27,000 million dollars in market capitalization this week (EFEUSA).
