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All 157 passengers of an Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 died today, an accident that looks similar to the Indonesian Lion Air crash which caused 189 victims in October 2018.
The Ethiopian Boeing 737, a brand new plane, lost contact six minutes after departure from Bole International Airport; the 737 departing from Jakarta had done the same twelve minutes after taking off.
In both cases the weather was optimal and the pilots were experts. Ethiopian Airlines has a good safety record.
Both planes belong to the MAX variant, which features a "Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System" software to increase safety. Depending on sensor input, such software lowers the nose of the airplane, to prevent stalling. Investigations into the first disaster suggest the pilot might have had trouble with the automatic systems over this issue.
The two black boxes (with cockpit voice and flight data respectively), are likely to be recovered.
Sources:
https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/ethiopian-airlines-crash-news-latest-death-toll-addis-ababa-nairobi-boeing-737-max-a8816296.html
https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/03/10/second-crash-of-new-boeing-737-max-8-aggravates-safety-concerns/
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Tuesday March 12 2019, @10:00AM
Granted (maybe). There are, however, multiple similarities with Lion Air given what we know from reported ATC comms and FR24 data - all of which should be taken with same pinch of salt as reports of low hours pilots until confirmation.
* apparent difficulties in pitch control shortly after takeoff (FR24 altitude / vertical speed data - some of which looks eerily similar to the Lion Air flight)
* pilots reported unreliable airspeed indication
* pilots reported flight control difficulties
* pilots requested return, turned back (or started to)
* followed by high speed impact