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Indonesian investigators have determined that design and oversight lapses played a central role in the fatal crash of a Boeing 737 MAX jet in October, according to people familiar with the matter, in what is expected to be the first formal government finding of fault.
The draft conclusions, these people said, also identify a string of pilot errors and maintenance mistakes as causal factors in the fatal plunge of the Boeing Co. plane into the Java Sea, echoing a preliminary report from Indonesia last year.
Misfires of an automated flight-control feature called MCAS on the MAX fleet led to the nosedive of the Lion Air jet and a similar crash of an Ethiopian Airlines MAX shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa in March. The two crashes took 346 lives, prompted the grounding of all 737 MAX planes and disrupted the global aviation industry.
Excerpt from WSJ
LONDON—British travel agency Thomas Cook was born to cater to moneyed Victorians, taking them on grand tours around Europe and the U.S. It evolved over nearly two centuries into a charter service for European budget holidaymakers.
Early Monday, the 178-year-old company went bust, stranding as many as 500,000 of these modern-day globe-trotters and triggering what the U.K. government said was its biggest-ever peacetime repatriation.
The marooning of an estimated 150,000 U.K.-based travelers alone by the bankruptcy set off round-the-clock news coverage here. It also provided newly minted Prime Minister Boris Johnson —already fighting both the European Union and his country’s Parliament over Brexit—a fresh crisis.
Excerpt from WSJ
The new TWA Hotel at JFK cracks down on miserly aviation hobbyists; ‘it was getting crazy crowded’. At the rooftop pool bar at the new TWA Hotel, nobody watches as the sun sets over the distant Manhattan skyline.
But when a British Airways 747 takes off, a half a dozen heads turn in unison to admire a rare retro paint scheme on the jumbo jet: a midnight-blue belly and the airline’s coat-of-arms emblazoned on the tail.
“All the action is right in front of you,” says Eric Dunetz, who has whiled away several weekends at the pool bar since the hotel opened in May, sometimes for upward of 10 hours at a time. “It’s a good place to relax and just watch planes.”
Excerpt from WSJ
The aircraft maker’s Americas unit is digitizing the approval of expense reports and payment of invoices
An Airbus A350 XWB prepares for landing. The aircraft maker’s Americas division is using artificial intelligence to shave costs from its expense report approval process.
Airbus SE is using artificial intelligence to squeeze cost out of its finance function, an experiment launched in the aircraft maker’s Americas division that could save the corporation millions of dollars annually if rolled out in other regions.
It’s one of the latest examples of how companies across sectors are digitizing operations to increase efficiency, reduce human error and free up employees for tasks that require more human judgment, such as strategic planning, analysis and audits.
“Companies can now automate highly repetitive activity at a lower cost with a higher degree of accuracy,” said David Axson, head of the CFO consulting practice at Accenture Strategy, a unit of consulting firm Accenture PLC. “This especially applies to high-volume-use cases like accounts payable.”
Excerpt from WSJ
At the root of the company’s miscalculation was a flawed assumption that pilots could handle any malfunction
Almost as soon as the wheels of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 spun free from the runway March 10, the instruments in front of Capt. Yared Getachew went haywire.
The digital displays for altitude, airspeed and other basic information showed dramatically different readings from those in front of his co-pilot. The controls in Capt. Getachew’s hands started shaking to warn him the plane was climbing too steeply and was in imminent danger of falling from the sky.
Soon, a cascade of warning tones and colored lights and mechanical voices filled the cockpit. The pilots spoke in clipped bursts.
“Command!” Capt. Getachew called out twice, trying to activate the autopilot. Twice he got a warning horn.
Excerpt from WSJ
A look at the plans to correct the aircraft’s flight-control system that contributed to two fatal crashes and the plane’s grounding
Two fatal crashes of Boeing Co. BA 737 MAX exposed problems with the aircraft’s flight-control system, spurring aviation regulators to push for additional changes before the grounded plane can again fly with passengers.
Look at the problems and how Boeing plans to fix them.
Excerpt from WSJ
Race to build smaller long-range planes could weigh on the aircraft-finance industry
After years of getting crowded with small planes and big planes, the skies are about to be invaded by medium-sized planes. The shift may delight airlines and flyers, but is starting to create problems for plane owners.
Plane maker says the funds will be paid to airlines over a number of years
Two crashes and the global grounding of Boeing’s 737 MAX commercial airliner led to extensive disruption in the international aerospace industry. WSJ’s Robert Wall explains the continuing effects of the plane’s grounding. Photo: Getty Images
Boeing Co. will set aside about $5 billion to compensate airlines that have suffered because of the prolonged grounding of the 737 MAX plane.