Pilots union slams Boeing over communication failures

An influential pilots’ union in the US says its trust in Boeing has been shaken after learning that an important safety feature on their 737 Max aircraft did not work as they had been told it would. The criticism from the Allied Pilots Association, which represents pilots working for American Airlines, adds to complaints about communications from Boeing regarding software that has become a focus of investigations into two deadly crashes. Boeing admitted on Sunday that it had known in 2017 that an error warning light that was meant to be standard in the cockpit was not in fact in operation in all of its 737 Max fleet, but it did not communicate that to airlines or to its regulator until after a crash in Indonesia in October 2018. American Airlines, which has the second largest 737 Max fleet in the US, after Southwest, did have the alert in operation, but its pilots union said it was told by Boeing that an error warning light would have alerted them before take-off if one of the plane’s so-called angle of attack (AOA) sensors was likely to be faulty. Captain Jason Goldberg, spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association, said Boeing previously assured its pilots that they would have received a cockpit alert before take-off if the two sensors on the plane disagreed, indicating one might be faulty. Now Boeing has told the pilots that the disagree alert would not work until after take-off, when it might be much harder to deal with, Goldberg said.  “Boeing and the operators have made it clear that pilot confidence is a huge part of the return to service of the Max,” he said. “If they are trying to instil confidence in the operators this is not the way to do it.” <br/>