Boeing wanted to wait 3 years to fix safety alert on 737 Max

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/>