Marc Garneau, Canada’s transport minister, said on Wednesday that the satellite-tracking data revealed “vertical variations” in the Ethiopian Airlines flight reminiscent of those seen before the crash of the Lion Air Boeing 737 Max in Indonesia in October.
The investigation of the Ethiopian crash is still in its early stages, and the full data cited by the authorities has not been publicly released. Many experts cautioned that any conclusions are far from certain and don’t rule out other possibilities, such as pilot error or another malfunctioning system.
But aviation experts who reviewed the patterns in publicly available data said it suggests that the newly installed automated system known as M.C.A.S. may have been activated on the Ethiopian flight and could have contributed to the crash.
A Similar Pattern
Many experts believe that during the first crash, the Indonesian pilots lost their battle with M.C.A.S.
Possibly because of faulty sensor readings, the automated system pushed the nose of the Lion Air plane down. The pilots repeatedly counteracted it and pulled the nose back up, only to be overridden by the system again. Each interval took about 15 to 20 seconds, leaving a repetitive signature on the data for the plane’s vertical speed.
