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Crashed Ethiopian 737 Jet’s Data Recorders Downloaded, French Investigators Say Ethiopians Say Flight Data From Doomed Jet Shows Similarities to Indonesian Flight That Crashed
(about 1 hour later)
PARIS — French air accident investigators said on Sunday that they had finished downloading the data contained on both data and voice recorders, or black boxes, from the Ethiopian Airlines flight that crashed last week, killing all 157 people aboard. ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Information from the data and voice recorders from an Ethiopian Airlines jet that crashed last weekend show similarities to an earlier crash of the same type of Boeing plane used by an Indonesian airline, Ethiopia’s transport ministry said.
The BEA, France’s agency that investigates airline crashes, said in a message posted on Twitter that technical work on the recorders from the flight had ended. A spokesman for the ministry would not say what the similarities were but added that details of the investigation would be revealed later.
The agency said data from the Cockpit Voice Recorder and the Flight Data Recorder had been successfully downloaded and handed over to Ethiopian investigators. Although the investigation of the latest crash is still in its early stages, there have already been indications that the Boeing 737 Max 8 used by Ethiopian Airlines may have had problems similar to those of the Indonesian plane, a Lion Air flight that crashed in October.
The BEA spokesman, Sébastien Barthe, said the agency was able to download all the information from both recorders. A malfunctioning software program aboard the Max 8 planes is a central focus of investigators. The software program, called MCAS, was installed in the new Max 8 planes as a way of preventing stalls and worked by forcing the nose of the plane down.
In the Indonesian flight, there are indications that the system acted in error and that the pilots had trouble overriding the software’s actions. They ultimately lost their battle before the plane plunged into the sea.