Ethiopian Airlines Thursday disputed a New York Times report that claimed the captain of the 737 MAX that crashed on March 10 with the loss of all aboard hadn’t received simulator training on the aircraft. The airline said all of its pilots had completed differences training from the 737 NG to the newer MAX. However, although Ethiopian Airlines has one of the few MAX simulators, the airline didn’t deny the Times report that the captain trained on another simulator.
“The pilots had also been made aware of, and well briefed on the Emergency Airworthiness Directive issued by the FAA following the Lion Air accident,” Ethiopian Airlines’ statement said. “The content of the airworthiness directive has also been well incorporated in all pilot training manuals, operational procedures and working manuals,” it added. A number of other airlines operating the MAX, including Southwest Airlines in the U.S., don’t have dedicated MAX simulators. Pilots were given a tablet-based differences course that initially didn’t include information on the MAX’s MCAS stall protection subsystem. Pilot unions have criticized Boeing for the omission and following the Lion Air MAX crash on Oct. 29, it forwarded additional technical details on MCAS to operators.
Ethiopian Airlines’ statement said, “The B-737 MAX full flight simulators are not designed to simulate the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) problems.”
