Ethiopian B38M Crash
 

An Ethiopian B737-8 MAX has crashed six minutes after taking off from Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, on a flight to Nairobi.
There were 149 passengers and a crew of 8

From The Aviation Herald:
http://avherald.com/h?article=4c534c4a&opt=0

An update, there are no survivors

B38 MAX awful co-incidence?
 

Crashing shortly after take-off is not a welcome trend after two high profile 737-800 MAX events.

It is obviously too early to form any conclusions but two is too many and there does need to be some focus on what Boeing did to create the MAX that may be an underlying factor in these crashes.

The parallels with Lion Air 610 are too much of a co-incidence to ignore.
:(

Latest news incl "New Flight Control Features"

https://www.news.com.au/travel/trave...d63c57bcee657f

Due to the Ethiopia Airlines B737 MAX 8 crash, Boeing postpones the launch of the 777X which was due to take place later this week.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/03/10/b...ned/index.html

I would not say anything on news.com is actually news, after all their latest article states “aussies upmost confidence in Boeing” complete with a picture of an A330.......

I do not want to draw any conclusion however, as you mentioned:

"The parallels with Lion Air 610 are too much of a co-incidence to ignore."

I thought about some possible short term measures to regain the passengers' confidence on this type of aircraft without grounding them all:

1. Immediately disable MCAS on all B737 Max series jets.
2. Where possible, disable autopilot for all B737 Max Jets whilst airborne.

The MCAS system is required for type certification so it's unlikely that will be "disabled"

As for No 2 - MCAS was an issue in Lion Air with the autopilot already disengaged. So it's not an autopilot problem.

There was an excellent NYT article on the topic last month: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/03/w...sh-pilots.html

The solution to that is simple, unfortunately: Suspend the type certificate.

I just don't understand how the airlines can actually CHOOSE to continue to fly the type, let alone being allowed to, as long as there is such a doubt over such a critical system.

Are these the same airlines that like saying "Safety always comes first"?

Wasn't the world fleet of 787s grounded for a while, during the battery fire issues? Why should the 737 MAX fleet be any different?
And it is better to do that now, while the fleet is still fairly small (relatively speaking).

I know that I as a passenger is now making conscious choices not to fly on the MAX series until the root cause has not just been identified but also confirmed fixed.
That is the same choice I made about the 787 back in the day.

Boeing to modify MCAS software
 

So there you have it, from the horse's mouth