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Air crash: Boeing to upgrade stall prevention on 737 MAX

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Boeing in the next 10 days will roll out an upgrade to the MCAS stall prevention system for 737 MAX aircraft that have had two deadly accidents in recent months , two industry sources told AFP .The system was implicated in the crash of a 737 MAX 8 in Indonesia in October but the sources cautioned that the cause of the fatal Ethiopia Airlines accident last weekend has not yet been determined .

The software fix , which was already underway prior to the latest incident , will only take about two hours to install, said the sources , who asked not to be identified.

The MAX aircraft have been grounded worldwide in the wake of Sunday’ s crash near Addis Ababa that killed 157 passengers and crew , and Boeing has halted deliveries of its top- selling model .

The black boxes from the Ethiopian aircraft , which was only a few months old and crashed a few minutes after takeoff , are being analyzed by the French authorities to try to determine the cause of the accident .

The Lion Air 737 MAX 8 crashed last October also just minutes after takeoff , killing 189 people . The initial investigation indicated it was due to a malfunction on the stall prevention system , a new feature on the MAX planes .

Several American pilots also reported issues with the MCAS and the Federal Aviation Administration said it ordered Boeing to issue a fix by April .

The aerospace giant held a conference call on Thursday with at least three carriers using the 737 MAX and gave them the fix , one source said , and the other airlines will get it early next week .

Contacted by AFP , Boeing declined to comment.

Boeing would like to start installing the patch in about 10 days , both sources said .

However , there is a question of logistics involving where the planes go for the installation .

American Airlines , which operates two dozen 737 MAX 8 aircraft , has chosen to update the software itself , one source told AFP .

Neither source was able to specify the cost of the upgrade , but one analyst estimated it would cost about $ 2 million for each plane for a total of less than $ 1 billion for the 371 planes in use currently .

( AFP )

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