A preliminary report on an Ethiopian Airlines crash will likely be released this week, the country’s Transport Ministry said on Tuesday, as Boeing prepares to brief more airlines on software and training updates on the 737 MAX.
The aviation industry and grieving families of victims of the March 10 crash anxiously await details from the Ethiopia-led investigation.
Boeing has come under intense scrutiny since the crash, the second in five months involving its new 737 MAX 8 model.
The MAX software is the focus of investigations into the two crashes, in Ethiopia this month and in Indonesia in 2018, in which 346 lives were lost.
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This week, Boeing is briefing airlines on software and training updates for the MAX, with over 200 global airline pilots, technical experts and regulators due in Renton, Washington, where the plane is built.
A report says any fixes to the MAX software must still get approval from governments around the world.
The 737 MAX is Boeing’s best-selling plane, with orders worth over $500 billion at list prices.
It noted that within less than a week after the Ethiopian crash, the jets were grounded globally.
A spokesman for Ethiopia’s Transport Ministry, which is leading the investigation in Addis Ababa, said that the report will likely be released this week.
He, however, cautioned that “there could be unpredictable things’’ and declined to give further details.
The statement came a day after Ethiopian Airlines Chief Executive Officer, Tewolde Gebremariam, said he expected the preliminary report to be released this week or next week.
Gebremariam told Reuters that the leading African airline may or may not attend Boeing’s briefing in the United States this week.
Ethiopian and French investigators have pointed to “clear similarities’’ between the two crashes, putting pressure on Boeing and U.S. regulators to come up with an adequate fix. (NAN)
