US aviation bodies dispute parts of Ethiopian Max crash report

US aviation agencies disputed certain elements of Ethiopia’s latest report into the deadly Boeing Co. 737 Max crash near Addis Ababa in 2019, including findings related to actions taken by the flight crew. 

In comments attached to the near-350 page document published on Dec. 23, the US groups including the National Transportation Safety Board also said there was enough evidence to suggest a bird may have contributed in some way to the Ethiopian Airlines Group incident.

“Discussion of crew-resource management and performance were still not sufficiently developed in the draft final report, which continues to focus heavily on design issues,” the US team said. The flight crew’s lack of manual throttle reduction and the resulting excessive airspeed “had a significant effect on the accident’s sequence of events,” it said. 

Ethiopian authorities contend the crash was mainly due to a faulty safety feature. The plane, bound for Nairobi, nosedived shortly after takeoff on March 10, 2019, killing all 157 people on board.

The incident followed another fatal Max crash in Indonesia the previous year and led to regulators grounding the model worldwide, plunging Boeing into crisis. The US planemaker has since made revisions to the model and addressed safety concerns, and was cleared to return to the skies in its home market in late 2020.