Boeing planned to wait three years to fix a non-working safety alert on its 737 Max aircraft and sped up the process only after the first of two deadly crashes involving the planes. The company acknowledged that it originally planned to fix a cockpit warning light in 2020 after two key lawmakers disclosed the company's timetable on Friday. US Reps. Peter DeFazio of Oregon and Rick Larsen of Washington wrote to Boeing and the FAA and asked why the company took more than a year to tell the safety agency and airlines that the alert did not work on Max jets. The feature, called an angle of attack or AoA alert, warns pilots when sensors measuring the up-or-down pitch of the plane's nose relative to oncoming air might be wrong. The sensors malfunctioned during a Lion Air flight in Indonesia in October and an Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Ababa in March, causing anti-stall software to push the planes' noses down. A Boeing spokesman said that based on a safety review, the company had originally planned to fix the cockpit warning when it began delivering a new, larger model of the Max to airlines in 2020. "We fell short in the implementation of the AoA Disagree alert and are taking steps to address these issues so they do not occur again," said the spokesman, Gordon Johndroe. All Max jets will have the alert as standard equipment before returning to service, and newly built planes will have it too, Johndroe said. Boeing delivered about 370 of the planes before they were grounded around the world in March.<br/>
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Vanguard has raised concerns with Boeing’s management over its handling of the grounded 737 Max, saying its fund managers have become “very concerned” by reports of oversight failures in the wake of the aircraft’s two crashes. The issues raised by Vanguard, which is Boeing’s largest shareholder with a 7.1% stake, were included in a letter from the investment group’s top company engagement official. In the letter sent this week, W Robert Main III, head of portfolio company engagement, analysis and voting, wrote that Vanguard had “engaged with Boeing leadership and directors to convey our concerns”, adding that it planned to continue the discussions. “In our role as shareholders, we expect companies to effectively oversee the material risks of their business,” Main wrote. “In Boeing’s case, our expectation is that Boeing leadership, including its board of directors, are closely monitoring and maintaining the safety of its aircraft.” After the 737 Max was grounded following crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia that killed 346 passengers, Boeing faced a campaign from shareholder advisory groups for a management shake-up, including a call for CE Dennis Muilenburg to be stripped of his role as board chairman. Among the most vocal critics has been consumer activist Ralph Nader, whose grandniece died in the March crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302. Nader had written to Vanguard CE Mortimer Buckley calling on him to push for an independent investigation into “management misdeeds”. Story has more details.<br/>
Airbus’s first A350-1000 test aircraft has been recruited to support development of an innovative flight recorder that can be jettisoned automatically in the event of an accident. The aircraft, MSN59, has been modified to accommodate a mechanical prototype and, as a result of the initial installation, is the preferential candidate to serve as the platform for future functional testing. These tests would amount to the most radical advancement in civil flight-recorder evolution since the emergence of solid-state technology more than two decades ago, and provide a potential solution to one of the most frustrating aspects of accident investigation. When Air France flight AF447 disappeared over the South Atlantic in June 2009, the loss of the Airbus A330 resulted in an extraordinary 700-day undersea hunt for its two flight recorders. After losing contact in the Atlantico flight information region while en route to Paris, the aircraft had descended from cruise altitude and struck the ocean surface, sinking to a depth of almost 4,000m. Analysis of timing and the flightpath enabled the search to focus on a circle – albeit one that was 148km in diameter, a total area half the size of Belgium. Several attempts to locate AF447’s wreckage prior to April 2011 had proven unsuccessful – and this meant that, for nearly two years, the most evocative image of the hunt was that of the A330’s vertical fin being hauled onto a recovery vessel. French investigation authority BEA says the inquiry underlined that the information retrieved from the flight recorders was instrumental in determining the circumstances of the accident. <br/>
Regional airlines in the US cancelled flights after receiving error messages from navigation systems aboard some of their planes, the FAA said Sunday. Mesa Airlines, which flies for American Airlines and United Airlines, as well as Delta subsidiary Endeavor Air, United contractor GoJet, American Airlines-owned PSA Airlines and SkyWest are affected by the issue. These regional carriers have cancelled about 400 flights scheduled for Sunday, according to flight-tracking site FlightAware. A Delta spokeswoman said about 80 of its regional flights were canceled. The systems in question are on certain CRJ regional jets made by Canada's Bombardier. The manufacturer did not immediately return a request for comment. The FAA said the system was made by Rockwell Collins, which United Technologies acquired last year. The company wasn't immediately available for comment. "We are working to determine the cause of the problem, which may have resulted from a software update to the aircraft navigation systems," the FAA said.<br/>
A California company has conducted a test flight of a hybrid-electric airplane capable of carrying six people. A pilot and flight engineer flew Ampaire Inc.'s modified Cessna 337 Skymaster over Camarillo Airport on Thursday. The aircraft normally has two combustion engines, one in front and another at the rear, that turn propellers in a push-pull configuration. Ampaire has replaced one engine with a battery-powered electric motor. The company says the result is savings on greenhouse gas emissions and operating costs. Ampaire aims to supply aircraft to short-haul regional airlines. It plans to test a pre-production prototype this year on a Maui in partnership with Mokulele Airlines and hopes to achieve commercial operations in 2021.<br/>
Heavy fog blanketed Sydney on Saturday morning, delaying flights, creating hazards for shipping and setting social media ablaze with moody photographs of disappearing landmarks. Ships had to use their foghorns for safety as they navigated out of the busy Sydney Harbour waterway to the open ocean. A small number of flights in and out of Sydney were delayed, rerouted or canceled, with affected airlines including Qantas and Virgin Australia. International airline passengers were delayed by half an hour while domestic passengers endured waits of up to two hours. Qantas and Virgin told Reuters they had canceled fewer than six flights each and by 12.20 pm services were back to normal. Sydney’s most iconic structures, the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, gradually disappeared from sight, creating a spectacle for amateur photographers who posted their pictures on social media. The fog lifted by midday and regular services resumed.<br/>