An Ethiopian Airlines pilot told senior managers at the carrier months before one of its Boeing Co. 737 Max jets crashed that more training and better communication to crew members was needed to avert a repeat of a similar disaster involving a Lion Air flight.
According to emails and documents reviewed by Bloomberg News, the pilot in December urged his superiors to bolster training on a 737 Max flight-control feature so crews would be better prepared for what the Lion Air pilots encountered in October before plunging into the Java Sea, killing all aboard.
“It will be a crash for sure,” if pilots struggling with a malfunction of Boeing’s flight-control system on the 737 Max also encountered, for example, a cockpit warning that they were flying too close to the ground, the pilot, Bernd Kai von Hoesslin, wrote in a Dec. 13 email.
