Southwest Airlines says the Boeing Co. did not disclose that it had deactivated a safety feature on its 737 Max jets until after one of the airliners crashed last year.
At issue is an alert that tells pilots if a sensor — called an “angle of attack” indicator — is transmitting bad data about the pitch of a plane’s nose. The sensor’s alerts had been operational in previous versions of the 737 but were switched off in the 737 Max.
The news first appeared Sunday in The Wall Street Journal. The Journal also reported that Federal Aviation Administration safety inspectors and supervisors did not know about the change either. The FAA declined to comment.
Boeing’s annual shareholder meeting is taking place Monday in Chicago, at the Field Museum. Protests were expected to take place outside the venue.
In a statement Sunday, Southwest said that the safety feature was “depicted to us by Boeing as operable on all Max aircraft.” Only after a Lion Air 737 Max crashed in Indonesia last Oct. 29 did Boeing say the feature wasn’t turned on, Southwest said.
Southwest has 34 Max jets — more than any other carrier — and has run up extra costs and lost revenue since they were grounded last month after two deadly crashes. It is not clear when the planes will fly again.
On Thursday, Southwest Chairman and CEO Gary Kelly told reporters, “We are not happy with this situation. Who would be?” Kelly said details about contract arrangements between his airline and Boeing “are things that we will take up with Boeing privately.”
The Max was grounded after a second crash, involving an Ethiopian Airlines jet, on March 10.
In response to the Journal story, Chicago-based Boeing said that as the Max planes return to service “all customers will have the AOA disagree alert as standard.”
Earlier this month, an Ethiopian government report found that a malfunctioning sensor sent faulty data to the 737 Max 8’s anti-stall system, forcing down the nose of the jet.
The pilots could not regain control of the aircraft; all 157 aboard died in the crash. Last year’s Lion Air crash killed 189 people.
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