Pressure mounts to fix Boeing's troubled jet

Wreckage of the Boeing 737 Max that crashed in Ethiopia. Photo / AP

Boeing is facing mounting pressure to roll out a software update on its best-selling plane in time for airlines to use the jets during the peak summer travel season.

Company engineers and test pilots are working to fix anti-stall technology on the Boeing 737 Max that is suspected to have played a role in two deadly crashes in the last six months.

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday investigators have determined that the flight-control system on an Ethiopian Airlines jet automatically activated before the aircraft plunged into the ground on March 10.

The preliminary conclusion was based on information from the aircraft's data and voice recorders and indicated a link between that accident and an earlier Lion Air crash in Indonesia, the newspaper said. Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration declined to comment on the report.

The New York Times also reported the Ethiopian jet's data recorder yielded evidence that a sensor incorrectly triggered the anti-stall system, called the Manoeuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS. Once activated, the MCAS forced the plane into a dive and ultimately a crash that killed everyone on board, the newspaper said.

The Max remains grounded worldwide and airlines are losing money by cancelling flights.

Southwest, the largest operator of the Max with 34 and another 249 on order, said this week the grounding caused it to cancel 2800 flights.

Boeing is also seeing its own expenses rise, although it would not disclose how much it is costing the company to make the software fix and also train pilots how to use it.

Cowen Research analysts say a "very rough guess" is that Boeing will pay about $2 billion after insurance to fix the plane, pay crash victims' families and compensate airlines that had to cancel flights.

- AP