At the crash site of Boeing 737 Max 8, a detail was found explaining the catastrophe

At the crash site of the Boeing 737 Max 8 an important piece was found that can unravel the mystery of the death of an Ethiopian plane. Shed light on the tragedy and the negotiations of the pilot of the liner with the ground in the last minutes before the disaster.

Фото: Depositphotos

Five days after the crash in Ethiopia of the newest aircraft, new details of the last minutes of the flight of the aircraft appeared, Boeing 737 Max 8, whose black boxes had just been delivered the day before to be decrypted to France. It turns out that the captain of the crashed aircraft announced an alarm signal almost immediately after the departure of the aircraft from Addis Ababa airport, writes Newspaper.ru.

“I am requesting a return home,” the captain conveyed to the dispatchers, who immediately prepared to take the problem board and began to take away two other aircraft that were landing. “I am requesting a landing direction.”

The words of the pilot are reproduced by the New York Times, citing a source at Addis Ababa airport who heard the negotiations with the plane. According to him, the dispatchers observed strange fluctuations in the speed and height of the aircraft in the range of hundreds of meters on the radar - a clear sign that the pilots are experiencing problems with control. Seeing these evolutions, the controllers understood the emergency situation on board even before the pilot asked for help. At the same time, the connection with the aircraft was interrupted five minutes after takeoff, the source said on condition of anonymity, since the details of the negotiations had not been officially published before.

Another oddity that experts noticed and which is now being vigorously discussed among pilots is the abnormally high speed with which the Boeing 737 Max 8 was flying. “The fact is that the most incomprehensible is his speed,” said John Cox, a former pilot of Boeing 737. - The speed is very high. The question is why? The plane accelerated much faster than it should. ”

The source said that less than a minute after separation from the band, pilot Yared Getacheu reported problems with managing a calm voice. At that moment, the radar showed the mark of the aircraft at a height far below the safe level during takeoff.

In the next two minutes, the plane rose to a safe height, and the pilot announced that he intended to continue dialing, after which the dispatchers began to observe, loudly commenting on how the plane flew up and down, moving unusually quickly.

At that time, two flights — 613 and 629 — came in from the east, and the dispatchers, receiving a distress call from the captain, told them to stay at high altitude. According to the source, it was these negotiations that the pilot of the distressed plane interrupted, who "in a panic" asked permission to return. After that, his plane turned right, got up and a minute later disappeared from the radar, being over the forbidden military zone.

Photo: screenshot gazeta.ru

Despite the fact that the true causes of the Ethiopian disaster have yet to be named, published leaks are quite consistent with previous statements that there is much in common between the last 302 flight crash in Ethiopia and the crash of a similar aircraft in Indonesia in October. This circumstance formed the basis of the decision of most airlines in the world and countries to temporarily suspend flights of this family of aircraft, which include Boeing 2018 Max 737 and Boeing 8 Max 737.

Currently, all discussions are conducted around the ill-fated MCAS system (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System), which all Boeing 737 Max family planes are equipped with - its existence is the world, and most pilots learned only after the crash of Boeing 737 Max 8 in Indonesia. The system is designed to prevent the aircraft from falling into a stall at extreme angles of attack, which may be due to the more powerful and forward-facing aircraft engines in front of the wing.

“In the MCAS system, it is striking that, as they say, it is not turned off by simple and natural for the pilot actions, it works slowly and without warning. As a result, the pilot sees that the car is doing something wrong, and may not notice it, ”Alexander Yavkin, former chief designer of the Be-200, explained to Gazeta.Ru earlier.

Photo: screenshot gazeta.ru

Dennis Ocan, the famous Boeing 737 pilot, also criticized this “innovation”. “It is known that in the Indonesian case the cause of the MCAS triggering was the incorrect operation of the angle of attack sensor located on the left side of the aircraft. It looks quite surprising, but Boeing did not implement the “lice check”, so the defective sensor, foolishly sending to the system data on the beyond angles of attack, MCAS was taken on faith, and she, obeying the code embedded in her by effective programmers, gently and sadly began to shift the stabilizer to the dive, as soon as other conditions appeared for its operation - manual piloting and flaps removed, creating real problems for the already wound up crew. Which, I note, performed a very early departure and, of course, did not have time to sleep properly, ”he wrote in his blog.

The pilot also explained how this system works. “It comes into operation only in manual control mode and only when the wing mechanization is retracted. If the angle of attack sensor determines that the aircraft is in a dangerous zone, MCAS begins to slowly (0.25 deg/sec) shift the stabilizer into a dive - that is, create a tendency to lower the nose of the aircraft, moving it away from dangerous angles of attack. The range of adjustment of the stabilizer is limited to 2.5 degrees,” he writes. — At the same time, if the pilot, while MCAS is operating, suddenly decides to trim the plane (relieve the load on the control wheel by using the stabilizer shift through the control button located on each control wheel), then MCAS stops its operation for 5 seconds. However, if the triggering conditions for MCAS remain after this, it will start working again. 2.5 degrees is not that much. But 5 is already crap. In general, we can’t delay it.”

And while experts warn against hasty conclusions in the investigation of the disaster, 15 March has yet another testimony indicating the similarity of the two incidents and the ill-fated MCAS system.

So, referring to two sources at once, Reuters reported that among the wreckage of the aircraft a part of the stabilizer was found (according to some sources, it is a stabilizer knob drive screw) indicating that at the time of the fall the stabilizer was in an unnatural position, as well as in the case of disaster in indonesia.

Namely - in this position, the front edge of the stabilizer looked up, which caused the nose of the aircraft to go down. That is, according to the description, the said MCAS system should work, trying to take the aircraft out of the supposedly dangerous situation, which can be judged by the faulty sensors. The final answer can be given by deciphering the black boxes, which began in France and can last for several days.

Boeing plans to update 737 Max firmware during 10 days

The American corporation Boeing plans to release an update of the 737 Max aircraft for 7-10 days, news agencies report, citing informed sources.

According to France-Press, the update will affect the MCAS system, which struggles with the stalling of the liner with autopilot turned off. It will take about two hours to update the firmware, the agency reports citing sources asking for anonymity. BBC.

Reuters notes that at the moment there is no evidence that it was the software that could have led to the crash of the liner of the Indonesian airline Lion Air last October and the crash of the Ethiopian Airlines 10 March.

At the same time on the eve of the general director of Ethiopian Airlines Tevolde Gebremariam said in an interview with Xinhua, that there is a certain similarity between the two wrecksHowever, accurate conclusions can be made only after analyzing the flight recorders, which will take several days.

Boeing has previously reported that a software update for 737 Max liners will be released in the coming weeks.

10 March Ethiopian Airlines' Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft flying from Addis Ababa to Nairobi, crashed 60 km east of the capital of Ethiopia. The crash claimed the lives of 157 people, among whom were citizens of 35 countries, including three Russians.

This disaster was the second crash of an aircraft of this type in six months - at the end of October 2018, the same Boeing from the Indonesian company Lion Air fell into the Java Sea shortly after taking off from Jakarta airport. All 189 people on board were killed.

Immediately after the disaster in Ethiopia many countries have suspended Boeing 737 Max 8 flights. The latest flights of liners of the 737 Max family suspended the USA.

After that, the Boeing Corporation recommended that the Federal Aviation Administration suspend all flights of this line of aircraft around the world.

“Boeing, out of an abundance of caution and to reassure the aviation public regarding the safety of this aircraft, has recommended that the Federal Agency temporarily ground its entire fleet of 737 Boeing 371 Max aircraft worldwide,” Boeing said in a statement.

On March 15, experts from Ethiopia arrived at the French Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation (BEA) and began to study the flight recorders of the crashed Boeing. Specialists from the National Transportation Security Bureau, the US Federal Aviation Administration and experts from Boeing Corporation also arrived in Paris.

"We sent a six-member delegation to France and they are currently in Paris participating in this process," Ethiopian Airlines CEO Tewolde Gebremariam told Xinhua. “It will take several days to read, analyze, understand.”

The Boeing 737 Max is the fourth generation of the 737 line of aircraft, which replaced the Boeing 737 Next Generation. The first flight of this model took place in January 2016.

Read also on ForumDaily:

What airlines hide: 16 secrets

Americans do not want to fly on the aircraft model, which crashed in Ethiopia

Victims of a plane crash in Ethiopia: UN members, deputy family, famous archaeologist and ordinary people

In 2018, the death toll in air crashes rose sharply

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