Boeing says it didn’t intentionally deactivate alert on 737 Max

Boeing Co. acknowledged that a cockpit alert notifying pilots of a sensor malfunction linked to two fatal accidents wasn’t working as represented on every 737 Max.

The planemaker said it didn’t purposefully deactivate a warning meant to show if two angle-of-attack vanes provided conflicting data to aircraft flight computers. But the alert only functioned if operators purchased a separate optional indicator, Boeing said in a statement Monday.

“The disagree alert was intended to be a standard, stand-alone feature on Max airplanes,” the company said. “However, the disagree alert was not operable on all airplanes because the feature was not activated as intended.”