Two family members who lost loved ones in the crash in Ethiopia of the Boeing 737 MAX are testifying Tuesday, November 24, 2020 before the House of Commons’ Standing Committee of Transport, Infrastructure and Community. Paul Njoroge, who lost his wife, three small children, and his mother-in-law, and Chris Moore, who lost his 24-year-old daughter, are testifying regarding the ungrounding of the dangerous Boeing 737 MAX that killed 157 people on March 10, 2019.
Canadian officials are looking into the problems with this aircraft following the second crash of the MAX in less than five months.
Chris Moore said to the Committee, “Transport Canada cannot, in good conscience, defend its lack of action by saying that it might have grounded the plane ‘in hindsight.’ It neglects to acknowledge the first crash. Boeing and the aviation agencies had six years to get it right. However, flight crews only had four seconds to diagnose the problem and to take action.”
Transport Canada is responsible for transportation policies and programs across the country.
Paul Njoroge said. “I am here today because I believe that the crash that killed my family was preventable. Aviation regulators across the world were not diligent enough in their dispensing of regulatory authority over the certification and validation of the 737 MAX plane. Certainly, Canada would not have lost its 18 citizens and an unknown number of permanent residents had Transport Canada made prudent decisions after the crash of Lion Air Flight 610.
He continued, “The FAA announced the ungrounding of the 737 MAX last week. I believe that the plane is still unsafe to fly. The inherent aerodynamic structural flaws were completely ignored by Boeing and the FAA. The plane is still unstable. If a stall is erroneously detected for whatever reason, for example, because of failure of AoA sensors, MCAS would activate and then shut off to avoid repeated activations that occurred in both crashes. Pilots would be left to regain control of the aircraft using manual trim stabilizer system. Pilots are therefore the redundancy expected to turn the manual trim wheel. In the case of Flight ET302, this proved to be difficult in scenarios where the aircraft is nose-diving at high speed.”
The United States Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) effectively ungrounded the plane on November 18, 2020, despite family members’ objections given the continued confidentiality of all the documentation on which the ungrounding is based.
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) laid out its proposed conditions for returning the Boeing 737 MAX to service. Among those conditions are software updates to the aircraft, updates to flight manuals and mandatory training for all 737 MAX pilots before the plane is allowed to fly again.
For further information or to speak to Paul Njoroge or Chris Moore, please contact Clifford Law Offices’ Communications Partner, Pamela Sakowicz Menaker, at 847-721-0909 (cell). www.cliffordlaw.com.