The best strategy for the flying public is to keep an eye on what investigators find as a likely source of the second crash.
A plane falls out of the sky and people jump to conclusions.
And who can blame them?
The jetliner that crashed after taking off Sunday from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, killing all 157 passengers, was a Boeing 737 Max 8. It was exactly the same model of plane that crashed last fall, on Oct. 29, in the Java Sea near Indonesia, killing 189.
In a second similarity, the pilots of both planes were trying to return to their airports after experiencing unstable vertical speed soon after takeoff.
If ever there was a need to gather the facts, though, before reacting — or overreacting — this would seem to be it. The two crashes shared similar features, but in other ways were markedly different. And 350 other planes of the same model have been flying all around the world for two years without incident.
Two investigations are underway. We’ll await their findings.
Lion Air, operator of the jetliner that crashed last fall, was criticized for not properly maintaining its plane or training its crew in anti-stall technology that apparently pushed the nose of the plane down. The pilot of the Ethiopian plane, however, was experienced and the airline — Africa’s largest in the number of destinations and annual passengers — is considered to be among that continent’s safest.
Aviation experts said Monday it was unlikely an experienced pilot would have been unaware of the circumstances around the Indonesian crash and would have known what to do if the same thing happened to his aircraft.
