Fight for Survival on Doomed Jet Came Down to Two Cockpit Wheels
- Ethiopian pilots were unable to manually lift 737 Max’s nose
- A battle of men against machine highlights complex probe
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For two and a half minutes as Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 roared above Addis Ababa, the jet’s survival depended on the pilots turning a pair of wheels in the cockpit.
Black with white stripes, each disk was the size of a dinner plate and manually adjusted the nose of the Boeing Co. 737 Max up or down. The motor that normally adjusted this angle was shut off because a safety system had gone haywire and it was trying to drive down the jet’s nose.