QUOTE:
Von Hoesslin was concerned with how pilots would handle an issue with the 737 Max's flight-control feature in conjunction with cockpit warnings, according to the emails seen by Bloomberg.
"It will be a crash for sure," von Hoesslin said in an email in December, Bloomberg reported.
Von Hoesslin also expressed his concerns on aircraft maintenance and pilot fatigue in 418 pages of communications. Von Hoesslin reportedly left the airline in April and included his previous advice with his resignation letter. He declined to comment for the Bloomberg story.
"Some of these concerns were safety-related and well within the duty of the airline to adequately address," von Hoesslin said in his resignation letter, according to Bloomberg.
An Ethiopian Airlines spokesman told Bloomberg they could not comment on the story.
UNQUOTE
Tomaski. That is the very point isn't it. Lack of training and learning from other operator's accidents and near accidents, as well as internal ones. That is part of the safety culture that keeps us safe, or should. That an ET instructor should have stated as early as December that he had concerns, and that these were not acted upon is going to weigh heavily on the judgement of the public.
If Bloomberg truly have that resignation letter with reasons which impact (no pun intended) on the subsequent crash then that may be discoverable and will become known in due course I hope.
When I was involved in these sort of issues we published a monthly report of all accidents, near accidents and safety related events to our pilots (de-identified sometimes) whether internal or external. These reports were avidly read and had the macabre name of "the horror comic" but everyone read it and everyone learned. I still have many copies of them and they make interesting reading even today since many of the learning points still hold true. There isn't much new in aviation really. It just gets forgotten and is lost to the collective knowledge pool.
Then the legal boys moved in and now I understand that airlines are not as forthcoming on broadcasting internal errors for fear of the media getting hold of them and mis-using the information. If so it is a massive step backwards.
I remember a captain stalling a big jet over a very large city and doing a good stall recovery. Ended well, but what about the learning from it? Had that been lost it could have happened again. So the pilot wrote to every pilot in the airline, with his name on it, through the newsletter explaining how he had come to do the unthinkable. And he was regarded as one of the best by his peers. He was too, and he made a mistake. But through his honesty, and that of the management in publishing the letter without fear, that did more for flight safety than any single act I can remember in a long career. I am seeing a lot of the opposite right now and that is very worrying.
I get a daily report of every incident world wide and read it avidly still to see what is happening out there. www .aeroinside.com. There is great learning to be had every day right there.
Cheers
Yan