B38M, en-route south east of Addis Ababa Ethiopia, 2019

B38M, en-route south east of Addis Ababa Ethiopia, 2019

Summary

On 10 March 2019, a Boeing 738 MAX 8 left stick shaker activated immediately after takeoff from Addis Ababa for no apparent reason and remained on. A succession of four pitch down manoeuvres not initiated by the crew subsequently occurred and recovery from the final one was not achieved. Terrain impact followed a high speed dive six minutes after takeoff. The Investigation attributed the loss of control to an erroneous single source angle of attack input to the Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) from which, in the absence of an applicable non-normal procedure or appropriate training, recovery was not achievable.

Description

On 10 March 2019, the crew of a Boeing 737 MAX 8 (ET-AVJ) being operated by Ethiopian Airlines on a scheduled international passenger flight from Addis Ababa to Nairobi as ET302 and which had just taken off from runway 07R in day VMC reported a “flight control problem” to ATC and shortly afterwards contact was lost. The aircraft was subsequently found to have crashed into the ground at high speed and been completely destroyed killing all 157 occupants. There was no post crash fire.

Investigation

An Investigation conducted in accordance with ICAO Annex 13 principles was carried out by an Investigation Committee made up of investigators from the Ethiopian CAA Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (EAIB). Both the CVR and the DFDR were recovered from the accident site and their data were subsequently successfully downloaded. A Preliminary Report and an Interim Report were published during the Investigation (on 4 April 2019 and on 9 March 2020 respectively). Both contained interim safety recommendations which are reproduced below with the new Safety Recommendations made in this report on completion of the Investigation. 

The full content of this page is available to registered users only.
Please Log in or Register

SKYbrary Partners:

Safety knowledge contributed by: