Flight International 2023 02.pdf

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FlightGlobal.com
February 2023
Canada confirms $14bn
F-35 purchase
p19
Can India’s
domestic fighters
hit target?
Ethiopian crash report
divides opinion
p20
In from
the cold
Max shipments revive Boeing
as gap to Airbus narrows
p8
£5.99
Hard knocks
Our review of
airline safety
through 2022
p46
Pilot survey
Job concerns
dominate the
flightdeck
p16
Comment
More answers needed
Fatal flaws
Although investigators examining the Ethiopian Airlines Max
crash are rightly critical of Boeing, their failure to adequately
probe the pilots’ actions leaves us with an incomplete picture
E
thiopian investigators’ final
analysis of the Boeing 737
Max crash that spurred the
fleet’s worldwide grounding
contained no surprises, and among
those non-surprises was the in-
quiry’s airbrushing of the pilots’
operational performance.
Boeing has been rightly castigat-
ed over the flawed development
of the Maneuvering Characteris-
tics Augmentation System (MCAS)
stabiliser-trim function, redesign of
which might not have happened
for a considerable time had the
Ethiopian 737 Max not suffered a
remarkably improbable bird-strike
on its most vulnerable component,
the angle-of-attack vane on which
MCAS depended.
After a fatal Lion Air Max accident
in October 2018, Boeing had insist-
ed the Max was safe and that pilots
had been told how to de-activate
MCAS if necessary.
But the Ethiopian crash, just five
months later, forced the airframer
to adopt a more humble and
conciliatory tone, under an on-
slaught of accusations that it was
trying to blame crews who had
fallen victim to a fundamentally
impaired design.
Assessment of crew comprehen-
sion, skill and response – which
should have underpinned the
MCAS safety case – is essential
for a full understanding of any
accident, especially one involving
human-versus-automation conflict.
To ignore crew actions and avoid
exploring training adequacy or
pilot competence is to deny such
understanding and inevitably raise
suspicion over what exactly is
being kept out of the spotlight.
Ethiopian authorities already
have form in delusional attempts
at deflection. Witness the after-
math of the Ethiopian 737-800
accident off Beirut in 2010, when
officials
concocted
ludicrous
claims that lightning or sabotage
brought down the jet after Leba-
nese investigators concluded that
a badly paired crew became dis-
oriented and lost control over the
sea at night.
But this behaviour is not confined
to one nation. US investigators
clashed with Egyptian counter-
parts over the loss of an EgyptAir
767 in 1999, while French investi-
gators sharply criticised the probe
into another EgyptAir accident, in-
volving an Airbus A320, in 2016.
They also strongly disputed
Egyptian findings from the Flash
Airlines 737 crash in 2004 – an-
other over-water departure in the
dark – which tried to pin fault on
technical malfunction, rather than
the crew’s spatial confusion. Exam-
ination of operational and human
factors was “minimal” and “not
fully developed”, comments almost
identical to those levelled at the
737 Max probe two decades later.
There is no doubt that MCAS con-
tributed to the Max pilots’ sense of
overload as they fought to regain
control of the jet. But the crew
effectively lost control at wheels-
up, long before MCAS entered the
frame, which is why their decisions
and reactions under stress deserve
closer inspection.
Ethiopian investigators called
MCAS a “hidden threat”. That
threat was exposed, and ad-
dressed, and the 737 Max is back
in service because humility pre-
vailed over hubris, and admission
of weakness became the first step
to remedy. Pilots are human. Which
means pilots are fallible. Accepting
this is crucial to making them, and
the aircraft they fly, less so.
◗
See p20
February 2023
Flight International
3
Mulugeta Ayene/AP/Shutterstock
In focus
Airbus says autonomy tests are
aimed at dual-pilot cockpit
6
Airframers to stay off target
7
Airbus and Boeing see progress
in 2022
8
Yeti ATR crash kills 72
11
Engine issue derails RAF Hawk
T2 training
12
Ryanair revises inspections
after wheel-fire incident
14
A career off course
16
Ottawa agrees F-35 deal
19
NTSB dismayed as Max inquiry
overlooks human factors
20
Virgin Orbit takes heart despite
failure of LauncherOne
26
Su-57 deliveries advance
30
LCI drives Chaparral higher
38
50
Deadly lessons
We detail last year’s accidents and incidents
70
16
Regulars
Comment
3
Best of the rest
42
Straight & Level
76
Letters
79
Jobs
81
Women in aviation
82
4
Flight International
February 2023
Contents
In depth
Airline safety review
46
With annual accident rates
and fatalities having remained
roughly stable for a decade,
it is time for the industry to
tackle the causes of mishaps
and improve further
Accidents and incidents
50
The airline industry’s safety
record in 2022
Survival instinct
60
Are passenger evacuation
requirements still fit for
purpose?
Lock step
64
Australia is strengthening
its defences by ensuring
commonality with the USA
Falling short
70
The Indian air force is counting
on domestic programmes
FlightGlobal.com
February 2023
Canada confirms $14bn
F-35 purchase
p19
Can India’s
domestic fighters
hit target?
Ethiopian crash report
divides opinion
p20
AirTeamImages
In from
the cold
Max shipments revive Boeing
as gap to Airbus narrows
p8
£5.99
Hard knocks
Our review of
airline safety
through 2022
p46
Pilot survey
Job concerns
dominate the
flightdeck
p16
64
60
38
February 2023
Flight International
5

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