French investigators believe the crew of the Ethiopian Boeing 737 Max which crashed nearly four years ago experienced rapidly-developing stress from a stick-shaker alert on take-off, even before they found themselves fighting against the aircraft’s MCAS stabiliser-trim system. Investigation authority BEA has highlighted crew failings which began when the loss of an angle-of-attack sensor during take-off triggered the stick-shaker. BEA says the stick-shaker should have prompted the crew to apply stall-recovery procedures from memory – including applying nose-down input and disengaging the autopilot and autothrottle. “Only the nose-down input was performed by the flight crew,” it states. “The autothrottle remained engaged and the pilot later insisted on engaging the autopilot.” Engineering simulations, it says, demonstrate that the pilots would have been presented with airspeed and altitude ‘disagree’ messages, and should have run a checklist for unreliable airspeed – which also requires autopilot and autothrottle disengagement, adopting a 10° nose-up pitch and a specific thrust setting. But the Ethiopian Airlines captain did not disconnect the autothrottle and instead attempted to engage the autopilot, despite being below the autopilot height threshold set by the airline. “This premature action, although not appropriate in stick-shaker conditions, may be symptomatic of a state of stress that had been rapidly developing following the activation of the [stick-shaker] immediately after take-off,” says BEA. It says the first officer – who had just 300h experience – appears to have been “overwhelmed” by events from the point at which the stick-shaker triggered. Story has more.<br/>
star
Air China and Hainan Airlines plan to expand their schedules between the USA and China after that country’s government relaxed Covid-19-driven entry requirements. The two Chinese carriers submitted new schedules to the US Department of Transportation (DOT) in a regulatory filing on 4 January. Air China will be offering more flights between Los Angeles and the Chinese capital beginning on 8 January, the date the Chinese government has set to lift quarantine rules and most of its travel restrictions, and expanding to daily service later in the month. That carrier will resume direct flights between Beijing and New York’s John F Kennedy International airport from 18 January, while four-times-weekly flights to San Francisco will return on 1 March. The airline will also restart thrice-weekly flights to Washington DC’s Dulles International airport on 2 March. Hainan Airlines is resuming flights between Boston and Seattle in the USA and Beijing, as well as flights to Shanghai and Chongqing from 17 February. US airlines, meantime, are biding their time and currently have no plans to expand their services. United Airlines, which is currently operating four-times-weekly service between San Francisco and Shanghai with a stopover in Seoul, said on 27 December that it was “currently evaluating the market demand and operating environment to determine when it’s right for us to resume additional flight operations to mainland China”. Delta, meanwhile, did not comment on the new Covid-19 policy last week, or what changes it plans to make to its schedule. <br/>
A man in an inebriated condition on a flight from New York to Delhi exposed himself to an elderly woman passenger and urinated on her, according to reports. A complaint is being registered against the unnamed man who urinated on the woman after Air India told Delhi’s police about the incident, officials said on Wednesday. The shocking incident had allegedly taken place on an Air India flight on 26 November last year and came to light only when the woman, who is in her seventies, wrote to a letter to N Chandrasekaran, the chairman of Tata Group, that owns the carrier. The elderly woman suffered the ordeal when the drunk passenger unzipped and urinated on her in the business class section of the flight. She said her clothes, bags and shoes were left soaked in urine and she had to clean herself in the flight’s lavatory after cabin crew gave her a set of pyjamas and slippers to change into. The passenger said her seat reeked of urine and added that she had to stand by the toilet for 20 minutes before crew members gave her a narrow crew seat for the rest of her journey. India’s aviation regulator has sought a report from Air India on the incident. The watchdog said it will “take action against those found negligent” over the incident, while Air India said it had set up an internal committee to investigate the matter.<br/>