Lion Air May Cancel 737 Orders, Pilots Seek More Training

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Image: The Air Current

Lion Air, of Indonesia, which recently lost a nearly new Boeing 737 Max with its crew and passengers, may cancel further Boeing orders as tensions grow over who will take responsibility for what went wrong, Reuters reported on Monday. The airline has $22 billion in orders pending, but that represents only about 4 percent of Boeing’s backlog of about 4,500 airplanes. The 737 Max, which entered service last year, has been Boeing’s fastest-selling jet, according to Reuters. Meanwhile, pilots at Southwest and American Airlines have asked for more training on the automated system that has been implicated in the crash. Boeing has said the manual contains enough information for pilots to handle an incident like the one encountered by the Lion Air crew. However, Southwest said it will modify the angle-of-attack cockpit display for upcoming 737 Max deliveries.

The new indications will provide “continuous visual feedback to the flight crew allowing identification of erroneous AoA that could lead to an uncommanded stabilizer trim actuation,” according to an internal message provided to Southwest pilots and reported by The Air Current. “Currently, the MAX and NG have an AoA disagree light that provides an alert of erroneous AoA data,” a Southwest spokeswomen told The Air Current. “The AoA indicator will provide a valuable supplemental cross-check in the event there is an erroneous AoA signal present.” Southwest will also retrofit the current Max fleet with the new indicators.

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