After 25 years, covering tragedies like Ethiopian Airlines crash hasn't got any easier

In the quarter of a century since I became a travel journalist, I’ve learned that aviation safety is built upon learning from disasters

“It is not the purpose of this activity to apportion blame or liability.” The preliminary report into the Ethiopian Airlines tragedy on 10 March carries the same caveat as every air accident report I have studied, and uses the same dispassionate language.

One hundred and fifty-seven people died aboard a Boeing 737 Max in the heart of Africa on that awful Sunday morning. I imagine some of the victims’ loved ones desperately want to know who or what is to blame. One day, that will happen.

Yet after a disaster, the first step is to reduce risk to future flyers. Aviation safety is built upon tragedy, on learning from disasters. That is why the conversation on the flight deck and all the key flight data is saved on “crash survivable memory units” to help investigators piece together the last moments of flight.

The preliminary report reveals that an “inflight security officer” was on board, and notes the excellent training and health of the pilots. But it also describes in chilling details the sequence of events before the 737 hit the ground at 5.44am, 28 nautical miles southeast of Addis Ababa.

The aircraft instruments went haywire shortly after take off, with a faulty left “angle of attack” sensor triggering an anti-stall system known as MCAS. Four times, that software ordered the aircraft nose to point down.

The pilots appear to have followed the emergency procedures to the letter. Two minutes after Ethiopian Airlines flight ET302 took off: “The first officer called out ‘stab trim cut-out’ two times. Captain agreed and first officer confirmed stab trim cut-out.”

To override the robotic response of MCAS, the pilots tried the stipulated manual technique. It failed to work, and the anti-stall system continued to operate with a strength to defeat two fit young men: “Additional simultaneous aft column force was applied, but the nose down pitch continued.” The Boeing was at an angle of 40 degrees when it hit the ground at a speed of 575 mph.

“This accident was not survivable,” the investigators conclude on page 24.

In the 25 years since I became a travel journalist, I am glad to say that the number of accident reports I have read is declining, even though far more planes and people are flying. Often, they reveal human frailty on the flight deck. In the case of the Ethiopian Airlines tragedy, though, fallibility appears to have been built into a system intended as a safety measure.

The Boeing 737 Max will not be back in the skies until regulators and pilots are convinced that MCAS will fail safe rather than fail dangerously. And aviation safety professionals will have once again reduced the risks facing future travellers.

Yours

Simon Calder

Travel editor