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1 1 (March 14, 2019)

handle is hein.crs/govyiu0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional -Research Service Boeing 737 MAX Crashes Shake Confidence in International Air Safety March 14, 2019 Recent foreign air disasters involving Boeing 737 Max airplanes have raised international concern about the safety of that aircraft and passenger airline safety in general. On October 29, 2018, Lion Air flight 610 crashed shortly after departure from Jakarta, Indonesia, killing all 189 on board. While the investigation of the crash is still ongoing, it has been disclosed that pilots flying the same aircraft the previous day experienced some sort of navigation system failure and that maintenance records revealed ongoing problems with the aircraft's airspeed and angle-of-attack (AOA) sensors that monitor relative aircraft pitch. Aviation experts expressed concerns that faulty indications from these sensors could cause the aircraft's flight automation to command a pitch-down response. The investigation also revealed that aircraft documentation and pilot training may not have fully explained how the automation would respond under these circumstances. On March 10, 2019, Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 crashed shortly after departure from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, reportedly resulting in 157 fatalities. The circumstances of these crashes led several airlines and several countries, including China and the European Union, to immediately ground 737 MAX airplanes until a fix can be found to revise flight control software or otherwise address flight control difficulties that may have contributed to these crashes. Initially, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Boeing, and U.S. air carriers did not follow suit. One day after the Ethiopian Airlines crash, FAA instead gave notification to international civil aviation authorities anticipating mandatory design changes to be forthcoming no later than April 2019. However, on March 13, 2019, President Trump announced that FAA would issue an emergency order grounding all 737 MAX aircraft. Noting external reports identifying similarities between the two crashes, FAA has focused on the AOA sensors and flight control logic contained in a Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), a flight control feature that is new to the 737 MAX. On November 7, 2018, FAA issued an emergency directive ordering U.S. operators of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft to apply runaway stabilizer procedures in situations potentially arising from erroneous high AOA indications that might trigger repeated nose-down trim commands by the MCAS. In December 2018, FAA expanded the scope of the airworthiness directive, ordering the procedural change for all Boeing 737 MAX airplanes worldwide. Currently, three U.S. airlines fly 74 737 MAX aircraft, including the 737 MAX 8 variant involved in both crashes and the slightly larger 737 MAX 9 variant, both of which are covered under the emergency Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov IN11072 CRS INSIGHT Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress

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