Boeing Held Off for Months on Disclosing Faulty Alert on 737 Max
- Company knew before Lion Air that warning light didn’t work
- FAA faults planemaker for poor communication with airlines
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Boeing Co. knew months before a deadly 737 Max crash that a cockpit alert wasn’t working the way the company had told buyers of the single-aisle jetliner.
But the planemaker didn’t share its findings with airlines or the Federal Aviation Administration until after a Lion Air plane went down off the coast of Indonesia in October, according to a Boeing statement Sunday as it provided additional details of an issue that first came to light last week. The accident occurred after erroneous readings by a single angle-of-attack sensor triggered software that pushed the jet’s nose down until pilots lost control.