Email from Boeing to Ethiopian Airlines sheds light on a tragic crash

The questions came in the form of an email on Dec. 1, 2018, to Boeing from the chief pilot at Ethiopian Airlines. They were detailed and filled with aviation jargon. One of them was 452 words. But in essence the pilot was asking for direction. If we see a series of warnings on the new 737 Max, he posed, what do we do? What ensued was an email conversation among a number of Boeing senior officials about whether they could answer the pilot’s questions without violating international restrictions on disseminating information about a crash while it was still under investigation. That restriction was in play because a 737 Max flown by Lion Air had crashed a few weeks earlier leaving Indonesia. The inquiry from Ethiopian Airlines would prove chillingly prescient because just months later one of its 737s would go down because of a flight control malfunction similar to the one that led to the Lion Air crash. The Ethiopian Airlines crash would kill everyone on board and leave questions about whether Boeing had done everything it could to inform pilots of what it had learned about the malfunction and how to handle it. In response to the inquiry from Ethiopian Airlines, Boeing’s chief pilot, Jim Webb, proposed to his colleagues that he thank the airline for attending a previous briefing on the flight control system, called MCAS, but otherwise decline to answer the pilot’s first two questions and just refer the airline to training materials and previously issued guidance. Most of those on the email agreed. But at least one Boeing official, Simon Lie, an expert on the protocols surrounding investigations who has since left the company, argued that it could answer the question that was most centered on flight safety. “I’m good too. Although I think you could also answer question 2 without afoul of the investigation,” Lie, then a senior investigator for Boeing Commercial Airplanes who was part of the team looking into the Lion Air crash, wrote in the email, the contents of which were disclosed to a New York Times reporter. “However, if other feel we should stay away from 2, I will defer to their judgment.” That question asked Boeing what to prioritize in the event of multiple emergencies involving MCAS. Such emergencies could overwhelm pilots with caution lights, loud sounds and seemingly conflicting warnings.<br/>