[Wahoo]

Update med mer detaljer på avherald.

Tyder på at initial climb gikk greit (i likhet med Lion air). FR24 dataene er da tydligvis ikke pålitelige.

On Mar 18th 2019 The Aviation Herald learned that flight ET-302 was cleared to follow the SHALA2A standard departure route after departure from runway 07R and was cleared to climb to FL360. According to ground observers the departure was uneventful, the aircraft was handed from tower to departure (=approach) control where the aircraft was cleared to track directly to waypoint RUDOL when able. The crew however requested to maintain runway heading and climb to 14,000 feet advising of a flight control problem, which was approved by departure control. Some moments later the crew requested to return to Addis Ababa (in a routine like voice), departure cleared the flight to turn right heading 260, the crew replied "stand by, stand by". The aircraft continued on runway heading, the climb appeared to be very fast initially. Departure advised the crew they were flying into a restricted zone HA (R)-1, the call was without reply. The "standby" reply by the crew proved to be the last transmission from the aircraft. Radar contact was lost from both primary and secondary radar (the secondary radar was operating in degraded mode). An arriving 787 flight was asked by approach control to overfly the area at 17,000 ft where the radar had lost contact with the aircraft, the crew of that flight however did not see anything while searching for 15 minutes. A smaller training aircraft was dispatched and found the wreckage. The source stressed, that there had been no PAN PAN or MAYDAY call, there was also no change in transponder code away from the assigned code 2000, there had been no indication of unreliable airspeed by the flight crew, there had been no distress in the voices or abnormal background noises during transmissions from the aircraft that would have alerted air traffic control to assume a serious problem on board of the aircraft. Maximum altitudes and speeds have not been reported (editorial remark: a media report had claimed the contact with the aircraft was lost at 10,800 feet MSL).

Following the Nov 6th 2018 release of the Boeing Bulletin regarding MCAS in the aftermath of the crash of the LionAir the airline did distribute the bulletin to their flight crew a number of days later following a reminder. Ethiopian Airlines had been equipped with one Boeing 737-700 NG simulator only when the first MAX aircraft were put into service, the first 737-8 MAX simulator was put into service mid January 2019. Only in March 2019 a trim runaway lesson was included in the NG and MAX training syllabus. Flight crew are scheduled to go through a simulator session every 6 months (as per industry standards), the accident flight crew may thus not yet have received training on a stabilizer trim runaway (in the NG or MAX Simulator).

The source added the B737 NG simulator was not able to reproduce different trim handling by both aircraft: on the NG aircraft automatic trim (e.g. by the SRS) could be counteracted by an (intuitive) elevator opposite control input (e.g. on a nose down trim a nose up elevator input would stop and disable the autotrim system) unless a double failure was inserted by the sim instructor whereas on the MAX the intuitive counter acting elevator input no longer stops the automatic trim in order to permit MCAS to work. The only means to disable automatic trim on the MAX is therefore the trim cutout switches (renamed PR and D/U) below the throttle quadrant on the center console (same location as on the NG), which completely disables all electric trim (also via the trim switches at the controls) and leaves the crew with manual trim via the trim wheel only, so that crew needs to rotate the trim wheel nose up promptly to recover from a stabilizer nose down trim introduced by an automatic trim (e.g. by MCAS or other faults).

The source also reported continuing on runway heading (072 degrees magnetic), respective in a corridor around 080 degrees keeps the aircraft over relatively flat terrain and is used as the go around procedure for runway 07L/R. To the south or north terrain rises. HA (R)-1 would not have posed a problem due to terrain, it is a military restriction. The aircraft was in visual meteorologic conditions throughout the flight.