(Newswire.net — June 25, 2019) — Over 400 pilots, trained to fly the 737 MAX aircraft are accusing the Chicago-based aviation corporation of deliberately neglecting warnings and complaints that something is wrong with the aircraft’s sensors.
Legal action was started by a pilot identified only as ‘Pilot X’ in court documents and it has now evolved into a massive lawsuit against the U.S. airplane manufacturer, Business Insider reports.
Reportedly, pilots were constantly complaining about the new Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) designed to prevent the airplane from losing airlift, a condition known as stalling.
When airplane is in stall, it begins to fall from the sky like a rock. Pilots train to recover from a stall by pushing the nose of the airplane downwards to assume a position in which the airflow around the wings is restored. The MCAS system detects near stall situations and automatically pushes down the nose of airplane increasing the angle of incoming airflow to avoid the airlift loss.
Pilots that flew Boeing 737 Max airplanes were complaining that MCAS had activated when there was no loss of airflow, in critical moments of flight such as takeoff. Experienced pilots in the U.S. realized that turning of MCAS solves the problem, but less experienced pilots of Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines suffered crashes, which claimed a combined total of 346 lives.
Boeing recently admitted that it knew of the problem since at least 2017, but did not notify the US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) until after the Lion Air flight crashes. Moreover, it did not plan to update the software until 2020.
After the incident the FAA grounded the entire Boeing 737 series until further notice which left pilots out of jobs.
Pilots are now suing Boeing for loss of wages and for neglect in reaction to multiple complaints on the MCAS.
The complaints state that Boeing had “engaged in an unprecedented cover-up of the known design flaws of the MAX, which predictably resulted in the crashes of two MAX aircraft and subsequent grounding of all MAX aircraft worldwide.”