US safety board chair rebukes Ethiopia over Boeing 737 MAX report

The US NTSB has faulted Ethiopia's final report into the March 2019 Boeing 737 MAX fatal jetliner crash and said that country's investigators did not adequately address performance of the flight crew. NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy said in an interview on Tuesday that Ethiopia's Aircraft Investigation Bureau (EAIB) had made errors in its report. "We feel what they did not do is really delve into the flight crew performance issues and whether they were adequately prepared," Homendy said. "We felt like it was not as comprehensive and robust as it could have been." The MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 in Indonesia and Ethiopia, which cost Boeing more than $20 billion, led to a 20-month grounding for the best-selling plane that was lifted by regulators after Boeing made software and pilot training changes. Boeing declined to comment Tuesday. The NTSB was not given a chance to review or comment on Ethiopia's final report before it was made public last month, a violation of rules overseen by the United Nations’ Montreal-based aviation agency, ICAO, Homendy said. "It's unprecedented -- under ICAO we get a right to review the report and to provide comment," Homendy said. The NTSB comments released in December were in response to an earlier draft the board reviewed. The NTSB said earlier Ethiopian inspectors investigating the cause of the March 2019 Ethiopian Airlines' crash that killed 157 people did not pay enough attention to crew training and emergency procedures in their report.<br/>