Two key lawmakers said Friday that Boeing planned to delay fixing a nonworking safety alert on its 737 Max aircraft for three years and sped up the process only after the first of two deadly crashes involving Max planes last October.

U.S. Reps. Peter DeFazio of Oregon and Rick Larsen of Washington disclosed the decision in letters sent to Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration seeking details on what the plane maker and the agency knew and when, and at what point airlines were told of the defect. Both said they were concerned about delays in notifying regulators and the airlines.

The feature, called an angle of attack alert light, was designed to warn pilots when sensors measuring the direction of the plane's nose up or down relative to oncoming air might not be working.

Boeing admitted in May that within months of the plane's 2017 debut, engineers realized that the sensor warning light only worked when paired with a separate, optional feature.

The sensors malfunctioned during flights in Indonesia in October and Ethiopia in March. Pilots were unable to regain control of both planes and they crashed, killing a total of 346 people.

The sensors fed incorrect information to computers on board the Lion Air Max plane that crashed in Indonesia last year and the Ethiopian Airlines Max that crashed in March. However, neither of those airlines ordered the extra safety feature for their planes.

The legislators, both leaders of a House committee that's investigating the Max crashes and the FAA's regulation of Boeing, said in a statement Friday that the committee has information that Boeing knew about the problem in 2017, soon after the first Max was delivered. Yet the company decided in November of 2017 to defer a software update to fix the flaw until 2020, the statement said.

But after the Lion Air crash in Indonesia last year, the company accelerated its timeline for the update, the legislators wrote.

DeFazio, chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and Larsen, who heads an aviation subcommittee, said the fact that Boeing knew about the defect for more than a year before disclosing it to the FAA is a big problem.

Larsen questioned why Boeing didn't consider the problem critical to safety “and I am concerned it took Boeing so long to report this defective feature to the FAA and its customers.”

It's not clear whether the warning light would have prevented either the Lion Air crash or the March 10 crash of an Ethiopian Airlines Max near Addis Ababa. But the delayed notification of the FAA raises questions about Boeing's candour with regulators and airline customers.

On Friday, the FAA re-issued a May statement that said Boeing briefed the agency's Seattle office about the problem in November of 2018, and the matter was forwarded to an agency review board. The board considered the issue to be “low risk,” and required it to be addressed as part of the software update after the Indonesia crash. “However, Boeing's timely or earlier communication with the operators would have helped to reduce or eliminate possible confusion,” the statement said.

FAA Acting Administrator Daniel Elwell, during testimony last month before the committee, said he wasn't happy with the 13-month gap between Boeing discovering the problem and telling the agency. “We will make sure that software anomalies are reported more quickly,” said Elwell, who called the problem a maintenance issue rather than a critical safety item.

Boeing has said the Max was safe to fly without the sensor alert. Other gauges tell pilots enough about the plane's speed, altitude, engine performance and other factors to fly safely, the company has said. Messages were left Friday seeking comment about the legislators' letter.

Koenig reported from Dallas, while Krisher reported from Detroit. </s> Washington D.C.: Boeing on Wednesday (local time) said that it was considering the possibility of halting the production of 737 Max if the grounding of the aircraft continues further. Boeing has continued to build the 737 Max, its bestselling jet, although at a slower pace. The plane has been grounded since mid-March because of two fatal crashes that killed more than 300 people.

Boeing hopes to get approval for the plane to fly again sometime early in the fourth quarter. CEO Dennis Muilenburg was quoted as saying by CNN that any further delays in approval to fly the 737 Max again could jeopardize its production. A further slowdown or temporary shutdown of 737 Max production is “not something we want to do, but an alternative that we have to prepare for,” Muilenburg told investors on a conference call.

He added that the company needs to prepare for that “to make sure we’ve covered all scenarios.” It is unclear when the 737 Max will be allowed to return to service. Boeing is working on a software fix to a safety system which is believed to have caused the two crashes.

 But it says it won’t be able to present that fix to aviation authorities until September at the earliest, and it hopes to have a certification flight in October.

Because of the grounding, the company reported its largest loss ever – amounting to USD 3.7 billion in the second quarter. Boeing said any slowdown or halt in production could lead to even more losses. The slower pace of 737 Max production has already increased Boeing’s production costs by about USD 1.7 billion. The company had already warned investors that it would take a USD five billion profit hit from its inability to deliver the 737 Max to its customers. </s> Boeing planned to delay a fix for a critical cockpit warning light on its now-grounded Max 737 airliner, leaders of a congressional committee said Friday, but then accelerated the timeline late last year after the first of two deadly crashes that killed 346 people.

In a letter to Boeing, the Federal Aviation Administration and a Boeing subcontractor, Reps. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) and Rick Larsen (D-Wash.) said they'd obtained information suggesting that even though the plane maker knew the safety alert wasn't working when it began 737 Max deliveries in 2017, it decided to wait until 2020 to implement a fix. The warning light tells flight crews when an angle-of-attack sensor is giving false readings. The faulty sensor was linked to both the Lion Air crash in Indonesia in October and the Ethiopian Airlines crash in March.

As part of an ongoing investigation of the crashes by the House transportation committee, which DeFazio chairs, the lawmakers are asking Boeing to disclose when the company knew the light was defective and when it informed airlines.

"An important part of the Committee's investigation is finding out what Boeing knew, when the company knew it and who it informed," Larsen, chair of the House subcommittee on aviation, said in a statement. "I have questions about the decision to not deem the AOA Disagree alert as safety critical and I am concerned it took Boeing so long to report this defective feature to the FAA and its customers."

Boeing admitted in April that the alert was not operating on all Max 737 aircraft, but a few days later said that the absence of such an alert didn't adversely affect airplane safety or operation. In response to the DeFazio and Larsen letter, a Boeing spokesman on Friday reiterated that finding in a statement to CNET.

"Based on the safety review, the update was scheduled for the MAX 10 rollout in 2020," the statement said. "We fell short in the implementation of the AoA Disagree alert and are taking steps to address these issues so they do not occur again."

When the Max returns to service, the safety alert will be included as a standard feature on all aircraft delivered. Prior to the Lion Air crash, though, it was sold as part of an optional package of equipment, a package that Lion Air didn't purchase for its planes.

The 737 Max has now been grounded for almost three months, dragging down Boeing's earnings and reputation as it heads into the Paris Air Show later this month. Though the company says a software update to the Max's Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System is complete, there's still no timeline for the airliner to carry passengers again. </s> Boeing planned to wait three years to fix a non-working safety alert on its 737 Max aircraft and sped up the process only after the first of two deadly crashes involving the planes. The company acknowledged that it originally planned to fix a cockpit warning light in 2020 after two key lawmakers disclosed the company's timetable on Friday. US Reps. Peter DeFazio of Oregon and Rick Larsen of Washington wrote to Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration and asked why the company took more than a year to tell the safety agency and airlines that the alert did not work on Max jets.

The feature, called an angle of attack or AoA alert, warns pilots when sensors measuring the up-or-down pitch of the plane's nose relative to oncoming air might be wrong. The sensors malfunctioned during a Lion Air flight in Indonesia in October and an Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Ababa in March, causing anti-stall software to push the planes' noses down. Pilots were unable to regain control, and both planes crashed. In all, 346 people were killed.

It is not clear whether either crash could have been prevented if the cockpit alert had been working. A Boeing spokesman said that based on a safety review, the company had originally planned to fix the cockpit warning when it began delivering a new, larger model of the Max to airlines in 2020. "We fell short in the implementation of the AoA Disagree alert and are taking steps to address these issues so they do not occur again," said the spokesman, Gordon Johndroe.

All Max jets will have the alert as standard equipment before returning to service, and newly built planes will have it too, Johndroe said. Boeing delivered about 370 of the planes before they were grounded around the world in March. Both Boeing and the head of the FAA say that the alert is not critical for safety. Boeing says all its planes, including the Max, give pilots all the flight information including speed, altitude and engine performance that they need to fly safely. The pilots' union at American Airlines expressed unhappiness about the matter, however, and said Boeing's assurance about the cockpit alert was a factor in the union standing behind Boeing after the first Max crash, in October.

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Jason Goldberg, an American Airlines pilot and union spokesman, said Boeing told pilots that the alert could pinpoint a faulty sensor even on the ground, before takeoff. "That is one of the things that made us confident initially to make the statement that we were happy to continue to fly the aircraft," he said. "It turned out later that that wasn't true." Boeing admitted in May that within months of the plane's 2017 debut, engineers realised that the sensor warning light only worked when paired with a separate, optional feature. Boeing is revising its software, called MCAS, so that it will rely on readings from two sensors instead of one, and will be easier for pilots to overcome if it malfunctions. It is unclear when the FAA will approve the changes and allow the Max to fly again. Regulators in other countries could take longer.

DeFazio and Larsen are leaders of a House committee that is investigating the crashes and the FAA's regulation of Boeing. They said Friday that Boeing decided in November 2017 to defer a software update to fix the sensor alert feature until 2020 but accelerated that timeline after the Lion Air crash. Larsen questioned why Boeing didn't consider the problem critical to safety.

The FAA on Friday repeated a statement it made last month that Boeing briefed the agency's Seattle office about the non-working alert in November, and the matter was forwarded to an FAA review board which considered the matter to be "low risk." Last month, acting FAA Administrator Daniel Elwell told DeFazio's and Larsen's committee that he wasn't happy Boeing waited 13 months to tell the agency about the problem. "We will make sure that software anomalies are reported more quickly," he said. </s> DALLAS — Boeing Co.'s top executive said the company will consider temporarily shutting down production of the 737 Max if the plane's return is significantly delayed beyond the company's October forecast.

The comment by CEO Dennis Muilenburg underscores the uncertainty swirling around the company and its best-selling plane, which has been grounded since March after two deadly crashes.

Boeing reported Wednesday that it suffered its biggest quarterly loss in at least two decades, nearly $3 billion, as it absorbed financial damage caused by the Max. Revenue plunged 35% after Boeing halted deliveries of any new Max jets.

The huge second-quarter loss was expected. Boeing removed much of the suspense from earnings day when it announced last week that it would take a $4.9 billion after-tax charge for the Max. The charge was calculated from Boeing's estimate of the cost of compensating airlines for lost use of their Max planes for several months. It did not include Boeing's potential liability from dozens of lawsuits filed by relatives of the 346 passengers who died in the two crashes.

Boeing is updating U.S. and foreign regulators daily on its work to fix the plane. Based on those discussions, the company said last week that it expects the Max to resume flying early in the fourth quarter.

The Max assembly line near Seattle has stayed open, although at a reduced rate. The company even hopes to boost production gradually from the current 42 a month to 57 a month next year, but that assumes the plane will fly and Boeing will soon resume deliveries to airlines — jets have been piling up in Boeing lots since March.

"If that estimate of (an October) return to service substantially changes, then we'll have to consider alternatives," Muilenburg told analysts. "Those alternatives could include different production rates, they could include a temporary shutdown of the line."

Muilenburg's comments implied that the Federal Aviation Administration can review the company's changes to flight-control software in one month. The FAA has already been analyzing much of Boeing's work. An FAA spokesman said the agency has no preconceived timeline for returning the Max to service, and will do so only when it determines that the plane is safe.

The grounding of Boeing's plane has caused airlines including American, United and Southwest to cancel thousands of flights into early November. A pause in Max production would hit Boeing assembly workers and the company's suppliers, including engine maker General Electric.

The Max saga is already dinging durable-goods orders and U.S. exports.

Orders for U.S. nondefense aircraft and parts fell 39.4% in the first five months of 2019, compared with the same period last year, according to Commerce Department figures. Exports of civilian aircraft fell 12% in that stretch, a drop of nearly $2.8 billion.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin weighed in on the importance of fixing the Max, which was designed to compete with a plane built by Europe's Airbus.

"There is no question this is very important to us," he said on CNBC. "We compete, Boeing versus Airbus, every day."

The company is one of the largest employers in the Charleston area, where it builds the 787 Dreamliner and has support operations for other aircraft programs.

Boeing, which also builds planes in Washington state, said it lost $2.94 billion in the quarter, compared with a profit of $2.2 billion a year earlier. It reported an adjusted loss of $5.82 per share.

While most of the focus Wednesday was on the troubled single-aisle 737 Max, Muilenburg said Boeing’s widebody planes, including the Dreamliners built in North Charleston, have done well “despite a fairly tough marketplace in terms of overall orders.”

Boeing’s widebody production backlog includes 5,500 airplanes worth $390 billion, with 787s making up more than 550 of that count.

Muilenburg pointed to a combined 33 Dreamliner sales — including 18 787-10 models built exclusively at the North Charleston campus — to Air New Zealand, Korean Air and Air Lease Corp. as a second-quarter highlight, adding that higher margins on the 787 helped to offset some of the 737 Max losses.

Muilenburg said he expects demand for wide-bodies to grow as airlines look to replace their aging fleets in coming years.

“We continue to see a significant wave of replacement demand early in the next decade,” he said. “And we believe our 787 and 777X families are perfectly positioned for that replacement wave that's coming. And you can see that our products are winning in the marketplace.”

He said Boeing remains confident in its build rate of 14 Dreamliners per month, split between North Charleston and Everett, Wash.

“We're continuing to gain efficiency on that line and that's allowing us to be even more competitive in the marketplace,” Muilenburg said. </s> Boeing and U.S. aviation regulators say the company needs more time to finish changes in a flight-control system suspected of playing a role in two deadly crashes.

The Federal Aviation Administration said Monday it anticipates Boeing's final software improvements for 737 Max airliners "in the coming weeks."

Boeing was expected to complete the work last week, but FAA spokesperson Greg Martin said the company needs more time to make sure it has identified and addressed all issues.

Chicago-based Boeing offered the same timetable as it works to convince regulators that it can fix software on the planes.

"Safety is our first priority, and we will take a thorough and methodical approach to the development and testing of the update to ensure we take the time to get it right," said Boeing spokesperson Charles Bickers.

Boeing needs approval not just from the FAA, but elsewhere, including Europe and China, where safety officials have indicated they will conduct their own reviews.

The planes have been grounded around the world since mid-March.

Awaiting preliminary report on Ethiopian crash

The news from the FAA suggests that airlines could be forced to park their Max jets longer than they expected. Airlines that own Max jets are scrambling other planes to fill some Max flights while cancelling others.

"We are aware that the resumption of service for our 737 Max aircraft may be further delayed, and our team will work with all customers impacted by any flight cancellations," said American Airlines spokesperson Ross Feinstein.

Calgary-based WestJet Airlines plans to stick with deliveries of Boeing 737 Max aircraft once regulators approve the plane for re-entry into service. Air Canada declined to say to The Canadian Press if it still has faith in the plane.

Separately, U.S. regulators and Boeing are awaiting a preliminary report from Ethiopian investigators into the March 10 crash of an Ethiopian Airlines Max 8 jet shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa. The report will be scrutinized for information from the plane's data recorders that might suggest similarities between the doomed flight and the Oct. 29 crash of a Lion Air Max 8 into the Java Sea off Indonesia. The two crashes killed 346 people.

Family members leave flowers at the site of the Ethiopian Airlines crash, near the town of Bishoftu, southeast of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on March 13. (Baz Ratner/Reuters)

Data from the Indonesian plane indicates that pilots unsuccessfully fought the automated anti-stall system for control of the plane, which plunged into the sea shortly after takeoff. According to published reports, the same system activated on the Ethiopian Airlines flight.

Boeing is making changes in an automated system that is designed to prevent the plane's nose from rising, which can lead to a dangerous aerodynamic stall. The changes include relying on readings from more than one sensor before the anti-stall system activates and pushes the nose down, and making the system's actions less severe and easier for pilots to handle. Boeing has said it will pay to train pilots on the technology.

Two American Airlines pilots who attended a session with Boeing experts last week expressed satisfaction with the manufacturer's changes. American's chief 737 pilot, Roddy Guthrie, said Boeing added "some checks and balances in the system that will make the system much better."

The U.S. Congress, meanwhile, is looking into the relationship between Boeing and the FAA. The House transportation and infrastructure committee said Monday that it had requested records from both Boeing and the FAA related to the certification of the 737 Max. </s> SEATTLE/PARIS/ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Boeing anti-stall software forced down the nose of a doomed Ethiopian jet even after pilots had turned it off, sources told Reuters on Wednesday, as investigators scrutinise the role played by technology and crew in the fatal March 10 crash.

A preliminary Ethiopian report into the disaster is due to be published within days and may include evidence the software system kicked in as many as four times before the 737 MAX dived into the ground, two people with knowledge of the matter said.

A third person familiar with the findings confirmed the software had fired up again after pilots had initially switched it off, but said there was only one significant episode in which the plane pointed itself lower in the moments before the crash.

The so-called MCAS software is at the centre of accident probes in both the crash of Ethiopian flight 302 and a Lion Air accident in Indonesia five months earlier that together killed 346 people.

It was not immediately clear whether the Ethiopian crew chose to re-deploy the system, which pushes the Boeing 737 MAX downwards to avoid stalling. But one of the sources said investigators were studying the possibility that the software started working again without human intervention.

In a statement on media reports about the investigation, Boeing said: “We urge caution against speculating and drawing conclusions on the findings prior to the release of the flight data and the preliminary report.”

Ethiopian investigators were not available for comment.

The Ethiopian crash led to a global grounding of 737 MAX jets and scrutiny of its certification process. Initial results of the accident investigation are due within days.

The stakes are high. The 737 MAX is Boeing’s top-selling jet with almost 5,000 on order. Ethiopian Airlines is also in the midst of an expansion drive, while other 737 MAX customers and victims’ families want answers, and potentially compensation.

Boeing shares were down 1.5 percent at 1450 GMT. They have lost more than 8.5 percent since the Ethiopian crash.

Getting the planes flying again depends partly on the role that Boeing design features are found to have played in the crash, though investigators are also paying attention to airline operations, crew actions and regulatory measures.

Boeing is upgrading the MCAS software and training while stressing that existing cockpit procedures enable safe flight.

People familiar with the investigation have already said the anti-stall software was activated by erroneous ‘angle of attack’ data from a key aircraft sensor.

Now, the investigation has turned towards how MCAS was initially disabled by pilots, but then appeared to resume sending automated instructions to point downwards before the jet plunged to the ground, the two sources said. Boeing issued guidelines to pilots on how to disable the anti-stall system after the Indonesian crash, reminding pilots to use cut-out switches in the console to shut off the system in the event of problems.

Cockpit procedures call for pilots to leave the MCAS system off for the rest of the flight once it has been disengaged.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that the pilots had initially followed Boeing’s emergency procedures but later deviated from them as they tried to regain control of the plane.

Disabling the system does not shut down MCAS completely but severs an electrical link between the software’s attempts to give orders to push the plane lower and the actual controls, a person familiar with the aircraft system said. Investigators are studying whether there are any conditions under which MCAS could re-activate itself automatically, without the pilots intentionally reversing the cut-out manoeuvre.

Aerospace analyst Bjorn Fehrm said in a blog post for Leeham News that pilots may have deliberately re-activated the system in order to make it easier to trim or control the aircraft only to be overwhelmed too quickly by counter-moves from MCAS.

Safety experts stress the investigation is far from complete and most aviation disasters are caused by a unique combination of human and technical factors.

None of the parties involved in the investigation was available for comment. </s> FILE PHOTO: The cockpit of Jet Airways Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircarft is pictured during its induction ceremony at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International airport in Mumbai, India, June 28, 2018. Picture taken June 28, 2018. REUTERS/Abhirup Roy/File Photo

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Boeing Co learned that a cockpit warning light on its 737 MAX jetliner was defective in 2017 but decided to defer fixing it until 2020, U.S. lawmakers said on Friday.

The defective warning light alerts pilots when two sensors that measure the angle between the airflow and the wing disagree. Faulty “angle of attack” data is suspected of playing a role in two deadly crashes involving Boeing’s best-selling 737 MAX in Indonesia in October and in Ethiopia in March.

Those crashes, which killed 346 people, have triggered investigations by aviation regulators and U.S. lawmakers and left Chicago-based Boeing facing one of the biggest crises in its more than 100-year history.

Boeing decided in November 2017 to defer a software update to correct the so-called AOA Disagree alert defect until 2020, three years after discovering the flaw, U.S. Congressmen Peter DeFazio and Rick Larsen said in a press release on Friday. Boeing only accelerated this schedule after the Lion Air accident in Indonesia, they added.

Boeing spokesman Gordon Johndroe said by email that a company safety review found the absence of the AOA Disagree alert did not adversely impact airplane safety or operation.

“Based on the safety review, the update was scheduled for the MAX 10 entry into service in 2020,” Johndroe said. “We fell short in the implementation of the AoA Disagree alert and are taking steps to address these issues so they do not occur again.”

Boeing has said it discovered the problem in 2017, soon after it began delivering its top-selling 737 MAX aircraft to customers. But it did not inform the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) about the defect until after the Lion Air crash more than one year later, the lawmakers said.

The House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure sent letters to Boeing, supplier United Technologies Corp and the FAA requesting further details on the AoA Disagree alert, the lawmakers said.

The letter was the second such records request sent by the committee to Boeing and the FAA related to its investigation into the MAX aircraft. </s> After discovering a problem in 2017 with a cockpit warning light on the 737 MAX, Boeing decided it would defer an update to fix the issue until 2020, officials said Friday.

Even as it continued delivering MAX airplanes to customers, Boeing had kept quiet the details of the problem, which prevented a light from warning pilots when there was disagreement between the plane’s angle-of-attack sensors. Those sensors are now suspected of playing a role in two MAX crashes.

The company didn’t disclose the issue to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) until after a 737 MAX crash in Indonesia last year, something that frustrated FAA leadership. Now, leaders with a transportation committee in the U.S. House said they have obtained information about the initial plan to fix the issue in 2020. They have sent letters to Boeing, the FAA and supplier United Technologies requesting documents around the problematic alert.

“An important part of the Committee’s investigation is finding out what Boeing knew, when the company knew it and who it informed,” said Rep. Rick Larsen, a Washington state Democrat who leads the aviation subcommittee. “I have questions about the decision to not deem the AOA Disagree alert as safety critical and I am concerned it took Boeing so long to report this defective feature to the FAA and its customers.”

Boeing has said that its engineers discovered that the warning light wasn’t functioning in 2017, but the company concluded that the issue did not adversely impact the safety or operation of the plane. In a statement Friday, the company said it determined that it was acceptable to wait to modify the system software on its next planned display system update, which was scheduled for the rollout of the 737 MAX 10 in 2020.

“We fell short in the implementation of the AoA Disagree alert and are taking steps to address these issues so they do not occur again,” Boeing said.

The warning light, which is standard on the MAX and included in the pilot manuals, is designed to light up if there’s a disagreement between the two sensors on either side of the plane’s nose that measure the jet’s angle of attack — the angle between the oncoming air flow and the airplane’s wing.

At the time of the crashes, the alert worked only on planes flown by airlines that had bought a different indicator added to the main flight-display panel. Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines did not have those packages.

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If it had been working, the warning light would have lit up on the fatal flights of both the Lion Air and Ethiopian jets. It’s not clear that it would have made a difference, as Lion Air pilots were unaware of the MAX’s new automated maneuvering system that pushed the plane’s nose down in response to the erroneous angle-of-attack data.

With knowledge of the overall system in the wake of the Lion Air crash, the Ethiopian pilots might have benefited from the information, but a preliminary report suggests they were ultimately able to diagnose the problem. They still weren’t able to maintain control of the plane.

Dan Elwell, the head of the FAA, has expressed concern that Boeing took 13 months to inform the FAA about the problematic disagree light, but he has also endorsed Boeing’s perspective that the light wasn’t a safety-critical issue. FAA leaders characterized it as an advisory light for the sake of maintenance, and Elwell told lawmakers there are no actions that pilots are to take when a disagree light engages.

At a hearing before a House committee investigating issues around the 737 MAX last month, Elwell encouraged members of Congress not to focus so much attention on the light.

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“Don’t make something that isn’t a critical safety item a critical safety item, because there’s enough critical safety items for us to focus on,” he said.

The Aviation Subcommittee of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure is scheduled to hold a second hearing on the 737 MAX on June 19.
Boeing delays the availability of the software update for its 737 Max airliners. The Federal Aviation Administration anticipates the update to be rolled out "in the coming weeks."