The complexity of the modern aviation industry and its sophistication are mainly linked to the need to guarantee safety to all passengers and avoid dramatic events during their transportation. For this reason, the functioning of civil aviation is regulated by multiple agencies and agreements that exist to create an environment deprived of crucial flaws or drawbacks in the organization of travel. In accordance with the existing framework, any actor operating in the given industry has to be certified to ensure that employed approaches, systems, aircraft, and devices meet demands for quality and safety (Wensveen, 2016).
Under these conditions, certification, acquires the top priority as a tool to avoid crashes or accidents. However, there are still disputable issues or problems that might pose a threat to passengers and precondition the destruction of the plane because of emergent situations that occur during the flight.
The proposed case can be related to the problematic nature of certification and its critical importance in the aviation sphere. Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 was an international passenger flight from Addis Ababa in Ethiopia to Nairobi, Kenia. Boeing 737 MAX 8 used to transport passengers was considered a new and reliable plane that could provide a high level of comfort along with safety guarantees to passengers and the crew. Unfortunately, on 10 March 2019, the plane crashed near Bishoftu after six minutes after the takeoff (Marsk & Dahir, 2020). Previously, soon after the start of the flight, the first officer reported the existence of some problems with the flight control and asked for permission to return (Marsk & Dahir, 2020).
The plane’s MCAS system activated and made it dive toward the ground (Gates, 2019a). The pilots managed to avoid the crash and prevent further diving; however, the aircraft continued to lose altitude, and MCAS started to function again, and the crew had to disable the electrical trim tab system to turn of the MCAS program. It also preconditioned the loss of the ability to stabilize the plane by using specific software, and pilots had to leave the engines on full takeoff power (Gates, 2019a). The high speed combined with the low altitude resulted in the crash and death of all 157 people aboard. The accident became one of the deadliest events in civil aviation in the 20th century.
The dramatic accident preconditioned the in-depth investigation of the case with the primary goal to determine the causes for the crash and avoid the emergence of similar problems in the future. Both flight data recorders were found undamaged, and specialists acquired specific information useful for the analysis. In accordance with the preliminary study, one of the possible reasons for the crash includes the failure of the MCAS software used by Boeing to guarantee safe travel and prevent the plane from falling.
The given case is taken as similar to the Lion Air Flight 610 disaster in Indonesia in October 2018, which also resulted in the death of all 189 people on board (Gates, 2019a). It means that the aircraft Boeing 737 MAX 8 becomes a potentially dangerous plane that might have some defect or problematic issue resulting in the appearance of emergent situations and crashes.
Because of the two similar accidents, questions about the certification of a new aircraft and flight control system emerged. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) made the agency’s safety engineers assess Boeing and speedily approve the resulting analysis (Gates, 2019b). It means that the standard procedure was performed, and the aircraft was certified to be used by airlines. However, the original safety analysis that the Boeing company provided to the FAA related to a new flight-control system that is used in MAX 8 contained severed essential flaws and drawbacks, although it was expected that the plane would be certified as a safe one (Gates, 2019b).
The appearance of two similar crashes involving the same aircraft and software raised multiple questions about the effectiveness of the MCAS system that is used by Boeing in these planes and its ability to guarantee safety to all passengers (Associated Press, 2020). At the moment, there are still no official results of the investigation about the main causes of the accident; however, there is an appeal to reconsider the results of certification and initiate additional research of a new aircraft with the primary goal to determine all flaws that might pose a risk to new flights.
The case demonstrates the critical importance of the certification process as one of the useful tools to avoid emergent situations and crucial deterioration of the situation. The problematic functioning of a specific software resulted in the refusal to use Boeing 737 MAX 8 by airlines because of the high level of risks associated with it (Associated Press, 2020). Carriers insist on additional certification regarding the results of the investigation of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and Lion Air Flight 610 crashes because of the similarity of problems. The critical flaws in any system can precondition the death of all passengers and the crew. Under these conditions, certification is an essential element of the modern aviation industry that is introduced to ensure that a particular aspect meets requirements for safety.
References
Associated Press. (2020). Ethiopia report blames 737 Max crash mostly on Boeing software. Time. Web.
Gates, D. (2019a). ‘A sense of urgency’ as an investigation into the second recent crash of a Boeing 737 MAX begins. The Seattle Times. Web.
Gates, D. (2019b). Flawed analysis, failed oversight: How Boeing, FAA certified the suspect 737 MAX flight control system. The Seattle Times. Web.
Marsk, S. & Dahir, A. (2020). Ethiopian report on 737 Max crash blames Boeing. The New York Times. Web.
Wensveen, J. (2016). Air transportation: A management perspective (8th ed.). Routledge.