The American aircraft manufacturer Boeing will send warnings to operators of its newest model, the Boeing 737 Max, due to potential for an instrument failure that could result in the plane entering a dangerous dive.
The warning is based on preliminary conclusions about the crash last week of the Indonesian Lion Air’s Boeing 737 Max 8. The documents that Boeing is going to send out warn about the need for pilots to follow the existing procedure to solve the problem. Under some circumstances, such as when pilots are manually flying, the Boeing 737 Max jets will automatically try to push down the nose if they detect that an aerodynamic stall is possible.
The safety warning comes in what’s called a service bulletin that goes out to all operators of the airplane and includes instructions on exactly what pilots should do if the condition arises. It’s normal for the Federal Aviation Administration to follow such a warning with an “airworthiness directive” that makes it mandatory, and this is anticipated in the coming days.
Earlier, the head of the Indonesian Transport Safety Committee said that the crashed aircraft had a problem with the device that shows flight speed over the last four flights.
Lion Air’s Boeing 737 Max 8 disappeared from the radar and crashed into the sea 13 minutes after departure. On board were 189 people, all reported dead.
