On 10 March, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed in Addis Ababa, killing 157 people on board. Earlier, on 29 October 2018, Lion Air Flight 610 went down in Indonesia, claiming the lives of 189 passengers. The two incidents have prompted serious concerns about Boeing aircraft's development.
Two crashes in five months have tremendously hit Boeing's market positions. Although the company has so far managed to handle the scandal, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 disasterhas reportedly revealed inconvenient truths about the leading US aircraft manufacturer.
A week after the Ethiopian Airlines catastrophe, Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg released a personal statement on the disaster.
“Safety is at the core of who we are at Boeing, and ensuring safe and reliable travel on our airplanes is an enduring value and our absolute commitment to everyone”, he said, adding that soon the company would “release a software update and related pilot training for the 737 Max that will address concerns discovered in the aftermath of the Lion Air Flight 610 accident”.
In a separate statement, issued on 11 March, the company revealed that “for the past several months and in the aftermath of Lion Air Flight 610, Boeing has been developing a flight control software enhancement for the 737 Max, designed to make an already safe aircraft even safer”.
The two statements confirmed what has long been rumoured by aviation experts: there were a number of issues specifically related to the…
