Washington (AFP)

Several pilots, including Chesley Sullenberger, the hero who crashed into a river, demanded Wednesday a better training for their colleagues to pilot the Boeing 737 MAX, for the time grounded after two accidents that killed 346 people.

"It is clear that the original version of the MCAS (software installed to accommodate the new, more powerful engine that changes the flight characteristics of the 737 MAX, ed) was fatally flawed and should never have been approved," he said. Commander Sullenberger.

"Sully" became a hero of civil aviation in January 2009 when he rescued 155 passengers and crew by landing in New York on the Hudson River with two engines down.

Before the subcommittee of the House of Representatives, Daniel Carey, the president of the powerful union of American pilots, accused Boeing of not having warned the pilots of the existence of this system, while relying on them to react adequately.

The question of pilot training was quickly found at the heart of the discussions: will it suffice, as Boeing thinks, to train on electronic tablet pilots already certified flight on previous versions of the 737, or will n he pass them in flight simulators?

This last solution will take time, for lack of sufficient number of simulators, and will cost much more.

"They never told us that the system (MCAS) existed and therefore there was no solid training" of the drivers for the 737 MAX, accused Mr. Carey, wearing his pilot uniform during the audition, which took place in the presence of the family of a young victim of the Ethiopian crash.

Chesley Sullenberger - who recently flew in simulator to recreate the accidents on the MAX-- insisted that pilots needed to "develop muscle memory to be able to respond quickly and effectively to an emergency. an iPad is not enough at all. "

"I understood why the crews (crashed planes) did not have enough time or altitude before they could solve the problem," he said.

- Four simulators -

Boeing has been working hard for several months to correct the MCAS, an anti-stall system implicated in the Lion Air accident in Indonesia in 2018 and that of Ethiopian Airlines in March in Ethiopia.

The manufacturer has still not submitted the changes for certification.

Commander Carey acknowledged that "Boeing's engineers have made significant changes that are moving in the right direction with software changes."

As for the training, he believes that one of the solutions would be to carry out a training on tablet and make sure that all the drivers will be passed by a simulator in the space of ten months.

For the moment, there are only four simulators able to reproduce exactly the flight conditions of the MAX: one in the United States, two in Canada and one in Ethiopia.

Dennis Muilenburg, the CEO of Seattle's aerospace giant, has not given a date for resumption of the flights of his medium-haul during a press briefing at the Paris Air Show this week, saying only that this would intervene this year.

According to Commander Carey, "the FAA (the US Civil Aviation Regulatory Agency) and Boeing have the means to fly this plane by the end of the summer."

According to Boeing's CEO, regulators around the world could line up for a resumption of flights. This would be the best scenario for the builder, but several regulators, notably in Europe or Canada, suggested that they intended to make their own assessment of Boeing's proposed changes.

Information on the FAA's relationship with Boeing during MAX's initial certification has raised questions about the credibility of the US agency, which is one of the most respected in the world.

Currently, there are 72 MAX-type aircraft in the United States, including 34 for Southwest Airlines, 24 for American Airlines and 14 for United Airlines.

US airline association representative Sharon Pinkerton emphasized during the hearing that the most important thing was to regain public trust.

"We have no interest in a quick process," she said.

? 2019 AFP