The U.S. Transportation Department began an investigation of how Boeing Co.'s 737 Max was certified to fly passengers before the latest crash in Ethiopia involving the new jet, according to a person familiar with the probe. The investigation has taken on new urgency after the March 10 crash of an Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max 8 near Addis Ababa that killed 157 people. And a Seattle Times investigation found that U.S. regulators delegated much of the plane's safety assessment to Boeing and that the company in turn delivered an analysis with crucial flaws. Ethiopia's transport minister said Sunday that flight-data recorders showed "clear similarities" between the crashes of that plane and Lion Air Flight 610 last October. The Dallas Morning News reported last week that U.S. pilots repeatedly voiced safety concerns about the Boeing 737 Max 8 to federal authorities, with one captain calling the flight manual "inadequate and almost criminally insufficient" several months before the Ethiopia crash.

Source: Ethiopian News March 18, 2019 17:48 UTC