Damaged sensor on Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max triggered fatal crash: Sources - ABC News

The Ethiopian Airlines crew commanding the Boeing 737 Max 8, which crashed last month and killed all 157 people on board, followed all recommended procedures but couldn't regain control of the doomed flight, Ethiopian investigators told reporters Thursday morning.

Ethiopian Transport Minister Dagmawit Moges said preliminary findings from an investigation into the deadly crash show the aircraft had a valid certificate of airworthiness, the pilots were licensed and qualified to conduct the flight, and the plane's takeoff appeared to be "very normal." As the jet began nose diving, the pilots "repeatedly" performed all emergency procedures provided by Boeing, the manufacturer, but they "were not able to control the aircraft," Moges told reporters at a press conference in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa.

Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 went down in clear weather in the morning on March 10, six minutes after taking off from Addis Ababa Bole International Airport. The American-made jet, carrying 149 passengers and 8 crew members, was headed to Nairobi, Kenya.

Based on the initial report, Ethiopian safety investigators recommend Boeing reviews the aircraft flight control system of its new 737 Max 8 model and that avian authorities verify the flight controllability has been adequately addressed by the manufacturer before resuming operations of this aircraft, according to the transport minister.

Two aviation sources familiar with the probe told ABC News on Wednesday that the Ethiopian Airlines flight suffered a damaged angle-of-attack sensor upon takeoff from a bird or foreign object, triggering erroneous data and the activation an anti-stall system -- called MCAS -- sending the pitch of the plane downward and ultimately crashing into the ground.

According to the sources, the pilots did not try to electronically pull the nose of the plane up before following Boeing's emergency procedures of disengaging power to the horizontal stabilizer on the rear of the aircraft. One source told ABC News they manually attempted to bring the nose of the plane back up by using the trim wheel. Soon after, the pilots restored power to the horizontal stabilizer.

With power restored, the MCAS was re-engaged, the sources said, and the pilots were unable to regain control before the crash.

Boeing said a statement on Wednesday: "We urge caution against speculating and drawing conclusions on the findings prior to the release of the flight data and the preliminary report."

The Chicago-based aircraft manufacturer has supplied more than 370 Boeing 737 Max 8 jets to 47 airlines since the model debuted in May 2017, and 72 of them are currently flying in the United States, according to Boeing.

MORE: Anti-stall system was activated before Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max crash: Sources

French and American investigators are assisting in the Ethiopian probe and at the center of it is an automated anti-stall safety system on the Max and its possible link to issues in the Ethiopian flight and a Lion Air crash in 2018.

In both crashes, the Boeing 737 Max aircraft struggled to maintain a steady flight path. The planes repeatedly lost and gained altitude before entering a dive to the earth's surface. In the two incidents, a new anti-stall safety system on the Max that controls trim -- MCAS -- was activated, sources have told ABC News.

MORE: New details emerge about the Boeing 737 Max plane involved in Ethiopian, Lion Air crashes

Commercial airline pilots are trained to disengage the system in the event of runaway trim, when the airplane is making unexpected pitch movements. It's unknown what would have kept the pilots of the Lion Air flight from disengaging the system and trimming the aircraft. Lion Air has defended the training of its pilots.

In the days following the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, airlines and aviation authorities around the world grounded the Max. The United States was the last to do so on March 13, after the Federal Aviation Administration concluded the refined satellite data that became available to the agency that day warranted a temporary grounding of the Max.

MORE: Boeing reveals proposed updates to 737 Max amid scrutiny of automated safety system

Last week, the acting FAA administrator went to Capitol Hill to defend the government's response to the two crashes. Daniel Elwell told senators on Wednesday that while the FAA may have been among the last aviation regulators in the world to ground the Max, it and Canada were the first to make a decision based on robust data from the aircraft.

Boeing says it is working a software update for the automated safety system and it is expected to be approved by the FAA and offered to airline in a few weeks.

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https://abcnews.go.com/International/damaged-sensor-ethiopian-airlines-737-max-triggered-fatal/story?id=62139860

2019-04-04 09:22:30Z
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Ethiopian Airlines pilots 'followed expected procedures before crash': Live updates - CNN

The black boxes from the crashed Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 were flown to France for analysis on March 14, 2019.

The black boxes from the crashed Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 were flown to France for analysis on March 14, 2019.Philippe Wojazer/REUTERS

To some extent, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Boeing tried to address many of the issues raised in by investigators after the Lion Air crash back in November.

On November 7, 2018, the FAA issued an emergency airworthiness directive because the flight control problem experienced on that doomed flight was "likely to exist or develop in other products" of the same aircraft.

The airworthiness directive (AD) required a revision of the Airplane Flight Manual and the Operating Procedures.

Crucially, the AD did not ground the 737 Max series aircraft.

The FAA has already faced scrutiny for its decision not to ground the aircraft earlier, and this preliminary report from Ethiopian Airlines 302 is likely to increase that scrutiny.

On November 11, 2018, Boeing issued a message to operators of the 737 Max series aircraft because it had "received many requests for the same information from 737 fleet operators" following the Lion Air crash. The message explained the automated MCAS anti-stall system, which adjusts the trim to try to avoid an imminent stall. 

737 pilots who have spoken with CNN say this system was not explained during the transition training to the newer 737 Max series aircraft. Those pilots were essentially in the dark about a new system on the plane. 

This message, issued after the Lion Air crash, tried to address that by offering pilots more information. But the preliminary report from the crash of Ethiopian Airlines 302 is once again likely to amplify the scrutiny Boeing is facing about the 737 Max aircraft.

It may also give some insight as to why Boeing and the FAA announced it would take additional time -- a few more weeks -- to get the 737 Max aircraft once again approved for service.

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https://www.cnn.com/africa/live-news/ethiopian-airlines-black-box-report/index.html

2019-04-04 09:21:00Z
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Ethiopian Airlines crash report released: Live updates - CNN

One of two sensors that measures the angle of attack is pictured at bottom on a Boeing 737 MAX 8 airplane outside the company's factory on March 22, 2019 in Renton, Washington. 

One of two sensors that measures the angle of attack is pictured at bottom on a Boeing 737 MAX 8 airplane outside the company's factory on March 22, 2019 in Renton, Washington. Stephen Brashear/Getty Images

The release of the official report caps off weeks of leaks and speculation about the cause of the crash, much of it centering on the role of the MCAS anti-stall software.

Reports from the Wall Street Journal suggest that the MCAS automatically activated before the plane nose-dived into the ground.

In the Lion Air crash, the MCAS forced the plane's nose down more than 24 times before it finally hit water, according to a preliminary investigation by Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee, which found the system was responding to a faulty sensor.

The Wall Street Journal has also reported that pilots initially followed emergency procedures that were laid out by Boeing before the crash.

Questions have also been asked over whether pilots had sufficient training with the system.

Pilots transitioning to the Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft from older 737 models were given a short, self-administered online course that made no mention of the MCAS system, pilots' unions spokesmen for two American carriers told CNN.

Ethiopian Airlines CEO Tewolde GebreMariam has also said that the flight simulator that pilots trained on to learn how to fly the Boeing 737 Max 8 plane did not replicate the MCAS automated feature.

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2019-04-04 09:05:00Z
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The Ethiopian Airlines crash report to be released: Live updates - CNN

One of two sensors that measures the angle of attack is pictured at bottom on a Boeing 737 MAX 8 airplane outside the company's factory on March 22, 2019 in Renton, Washington. 

One of two sensors that measures the angle of attack is pictured at bottom on a Boeing 737 MAX 8 airplane outside the company's factory on March 22, 2019 in Renton, Washington. Stephen Brashear/Getty Images

The release of the official report caps off weeks of leaks and speculation about the cause of the crash, much of it centering on the role of the MCAS anti-stall software.

Reports from the Wall Street Journal suggest that the MCAS automatically activated before the plane nose-dived into the ground.

In the Lion Air crash, the MCAS forced the plane's nose down more than 24 times before it finally hit water, according to a preliminary investigation by Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee, which found the system was responding to a faulty sensor.

The Wall Street Journal has also reported that pilots initially followed emergency procedures that were laid out by Boeing before the crash.

Questions have also been asked over whether pilots had sufficient training with the system.

Pilots transitioning to the Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft from older 737 models were given a short, self-administered online course that made no mention of the MCAS system, pilots' unions spokesmen for two American carriers told CNN.

Ethiopian Airlines CEO Tewolde GebreMariam has also said that the flight simulator that pilots trained on to learn how to fly the Boeing 737 Max 8 plane did not replicate the MCAS automated feature.

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https://www.cnn.com/africa/live-news/ethiopian-airlines-black-box-report/index.html

2019-04-04 08:54:00Z
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NZ mosque attacks suspect Tarrant to face 50 murder charges - Aljazeera.com

Christchurch, New Zealand - Brenton Tarrant, the self-confessed white supremacist accused of killing 50 people at two Christchurch mosques last month, has been charged with 50 counts of murder and 39 counts of attempted murder before a court appearance on Friday.

The 28-year-old Australian was only charged with one murder when he first appeared in the Christchurch District Court the day after the shootings, which took place on March 15.

However, the police later admitted the person listed as the victim on the single-murder charge was alive.

Thursday's additional charges laid by the police could mean that, if found guilty, Tarrant could be the first person sentenced in a New Zealand court to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The 28-year-old, who will be representing himself, will appear at the High Court in Christchurch on Friday morning by video from prison in Auckland. He will have the opportunity to enter a plea. Otherwise, the short procedural hearing will be used to set dates for his future court appearances, including a possible trial date. 

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The jumbled manifesto Tarrant published online before the killings and the live streaming of the attack on Facebook have both been banned by New Zealand's Chief Censor, the government officer in charge of censorship in the country.

Tarrant's second court appearance comes three weeks after the attack, as the New Zealand government rushed to make changes to gun laws and investigate how he was able to carry out the attacks.

On Thursday, the government held a single day of public hearings as it rushed to implement new gun-control laws, due to be passed on April 11.

The law change - which enjoys broad support in parliament - would ban most types of semi-automatic weapons, including those used in the March attacks. 

At the same time, the government, led by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, is also settling on the terms of reference for a major, independent inquiry to be held into the attacks. That inquiry will scrutinise New Zealand's security agencies, the police as well as social media networks.

Laws pertaining to hate speech are also being examined.

Tarrant was not on a government watchlist in New Zealand or Australia.

Some in the Muslim community said they had been the focus of New Zealand's security services while white nationalists had avoided scrutiny.

The Islamic Women's Council of New Zealand raised its fears to government agencies and politicians about harassment, discrimination and online abuse of Muslims for years before the attacks, according to the organisation's spokesperson Anjum Rahman.

"I don't believe they took appropriate and effective action," Rahman told Al Jazeera.

"I don't believe they provided the resources and the needed programmes. There was something done, but not enough."

There are also calls for New Zealand to begin recording hate crimes, something the police have never done before.

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"At the moment, if someone commits a crime against someone who is gay, or because of their religion, that's recorded as an assault or a homicide," said Janet Anderson-Bidois, legal manager for the Human Rights Commission, adding that the organisation has called on the government to record hate crimes for years.

"The physical act is recorded. But we don't have a separate category for hate crime.

"We don't know the scale of the problem, and it makes it much harder to address it because you're relying on anecdotes."

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2019-04-04 06:53:00Z
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Brexit: Theresa May’s party is in a rage that she’s negotiating with opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn - The Washington Post

LONDON — Theresa May has been on an epic losing streak. But this might be the biggest gamble of her political career. Her last-minute invitation to opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn to work together on Britain’s exit from the European Union stunned friends and foes — and signaled the prime minister’s desperation to deliver Brexit.

May’s dramatic swerve across her own red lines threatens to tear her beloved Conservative Party apart, as fellow Tories on Wednesday heaped scorn upon their leader for sitting down with an opponent they daily excoriate as a leftist menace.

Hard-line Brexiteers on May’s right are not only enraged that she seeks compromise with Corbyn, but they also fear she will agree with the Labour Party’s vision for an ultrasoft version of Brexit.

Boris Johnson, a rival of May’s and Britain’s former foreign secretary, complained, “Brexit is becoming soft to the point of disintegration.”

Johnson told Sky News: “For those of us who campaigned for Brexit and who believe in the opportunities of Brexit, it is bitterly disappointing.”

Corbyn and his Labour Party have pushed to remain closely aligned with European rules and regulations after Britain leaves the continental trading bloc. 

He told party members that in his Wednesday session with May, he “raised the benefits of a customs union and close alignment to the single market.”

But those proposals would probably keep Britain from seeking its own independent trade deals or from stopping free-flowing European migration — May’s top aspirations for Brexit.

Corbyn called this first sit-down “useful but inconclusive.” He complained that May’s position had not changed as much as he had expected. He also said May “remained resistant” when we brought up the notion of a second referendum.

They plan meet again on Thursday.

The prime minister’s gambit, to reach across to Labour negotiators, shows how dire May’s position is. She is a weakened leader, chairing a fractious cabinet — filled with feuding “remainers” and “leavers” who aspire to replace her. And she presides over a party that remains as divided as ever on Brexit, almost three years after the June 2016 referendum on Britain’s membership in the E.U.

Depending on one’s vantage point, either the Conservative Party has failed May, or she has failed her party. The prime minister negotiated, mostly in secret, for two years with her E.U. counterparts, to produce a withdrawal agreement that has been defeated three times in the House of Commons — and voted down by large numbers of Conservative lawmakers.

These very same Tories tried to oust their prime minister in a no-confidence vote. They finally extracted a promise from May that if she ever gets a withdrawal approved by the House of Commons, she will resign before the next stage of Brexit trade talks gets underway.

Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay blamed hard-line Brexiteers for the impasse. Barclay said Conservatives who refused to back May’s deal in the House of Commons essentially forced her to negotiate with Corbyn.

Barclay told BBC Radio that the only option left was to look for support from Labour, “because 35 of my own colleagues would not support the prime minister’s deal” in the last vote.

Barclay said the result will probably be a “soft Brexit or no Brexit at all.”

“It is undesirable, but it’s the remorseless logic of the numbers of the House of Commons,” he said.

May, who has fought hard to appease Tories and keep the Conservative Party together, now could preside over its implosion.

After Tory lawmaker Nick Boles quit the party in a dramatic resignation of the floor of the House, he complained May’s cabinet was filled with selfish cowards.

“None of them in my view has earned the right to lead the country after Brexit,” Boles told the BBC. “They are all compromised by their collective failure to lead, to unite, to get behind one plan, to sell that plan, to communicate.”

On Wednesday morning, Conservative lawmaker Nigel Adams left the government, saying he could’t agree that a deal “cooked up with a Marxist” — meaning Corbyn — was better than no deal at all.

A few hours later, Chris Heaton-Harris, a junior Brexit minister, also quit. He was the 30th minister to resign since May became prime minister in 2016. According to the Institute for Government, an independent think tank, May has had more resignations than any other prime minister in the past four decades.

In his letter to the prime minister, Heaton-Harris said he had wanted Britain to leave on March 29 — the original Brexit date. “Every time we seek an extension to this process we diminish faith in our political system,” he wrote.

Others tweeted or gave interviews voicing frustration.

Iain Duncan Smith, a prominent Brexiteer and former leader of the Conservative Party, told the BBC that he was “absolutely appalled” at the idea of getting the deal through with the help of Labour votes.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, a leading Brexiteer, tweeted, “Remainers take charge to thwart the voters.”

Fighting over Europe is nothing new for the Conservatives.

Such party divisions led to the downfall of several prime ministers, including David Cameron, John Major and Margaret Thatcher.

Cameron, May’s predecessor, called the 2016 referendum to appease the Euroskeptics in his party and to outmaneuver the U.K. Independence Party, which wanted Britain to exit the bloc. Cameron thought he could win and his party would finally stop “banging on about Europe,” as he memorably once said.

But since then, the banging has only grown louder.

Anand Menon, professor of European politics at King’s College London, said “an awful lot” of the Brexit drama “has been about keeping the Conservative Party together.” 

He said there are intraparty tensions in both main parties, and “you can’t deny just how important that has been.”

European diplomats in Brussels said anger and frustration were their first reactions to May’s Tuesday announcement that she would seek another short delay of Brexit — even though she has not made the progress they have insisted on.

But after putting May’s speech on rewind and watching a few times — one diplomat compared it to a close interpretation of the Bible — attitudes started to soften. The reversal was complete after British officials passed the message to their colleagues Wednesday morning that May was prepared to hold European Parliamentary elections next month if she did not win approval of her divorce deal by next Wednesday, when E.U. leaders are set to meet.

That would pave the way to a much longer extension, with terms defined by the remaining 27 E.U. leaders. Although that move is by no means a given, the British appear to be betting that the E.U. would rather have them inside as reluctant members than outside, with no transition period or safety net, which would spark economic chaos.

If, during a longer extension period, the British come up with a Brexit plan acceptable to both sides, so much the better, the Europeans say, and the departure date could come sooner.

Read more

Frexit? Italeave? After watching Brexit, other European countries say: No, thanks.

What is Brexit? Britain’s political drama, explained.

Brits pretend they’re sick of Brexit. But truth is they’re obsessed.

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news

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2019-04-03 18:36:51Z
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Is a second Brexit referendum becoming inevitable? - CNN

A vote will take place tonight on something called the Cooper Bill. If successful, it will take a no-deal Brexit off the table for good, by making it illegal in British law. That could have the (probably unintended) consequence of making a second referendum inevitable.

Here's how that might happen. If the May-Corbyn process does not produce a compromise that can be quickly ratified, the UK government would be forced to request an extension to the Brexit process beyond April 12, the current cut-off-date. And without the prospect of a deal being agreed before May 22, the day before elections to the European Parliament begin, the proponents of a second referendum will push for a long delay.

Here's the logic.

First of all, any significant alteration to May's Brexit deal ought to have proper parliamentary scrutiny. Many of the Brexit alternatives debated by the Commons earlier this week were fantasy options that were rife with legal problems or were without precedent.

As People's Vote campaigner, Tom Brufatto, told me: "It's very late in the day to vote on alternatives without adequate scrutiny. Parliament needs to be given the space to properly look at these options to avoid a blind Brexit and commit to putting any Brexit deal back to the people."

Second, in those indicative votes, a second referendum has been more popular than anything else. And the Prime Minister has committed herself to respecting the will of parliament.

Third, and most importantly, in the event of a long extension, the UK will still be an EU member state, with lawmakers in the European Parliament, and no fixed plan for leaving. At that point, it would be absurd that any public vote would not have the option of remaining in the EU.

Fourth, the EU has repeatedly said that it would need a good reason to grant a long extension. A referendum or general election would likely qualify as a good enough reason. And a referendum is far more likely to provide clarity than an election.

Finally, even if the Withdrawal Agreement does pass swiftly, MPs might insist that May's deal is put to the public anyway. "A referendum on the deal is looking more likely than ever, which in itself is a remarkable achievement," Labour MP Wes Streeting told me. "It's very clear that it provides a route, perhaps the only route, to breaking the deadlock in Parliament and restoring some democratic legitimacy to a deeply discredited process."

So there you go. Brexit, it seems, is unlikely to go away any time soon.

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https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/03/uk/is-a-second-referendum-more-likely/index.html

2019-04-03 17:37:02Z
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