Boeing 737: A Tragedy that Could Have Been Prevented?

This Wednesday, a Boeing 737 plane taking off from Ethiopia had trouble maintaining its flight only minutes after takeoff. From the reports given to the New York Times, the air traffic towers reported that they were receiving distressed messages from the veteran pilots about requesting an emergency landing. The plane itself seemed to be oscillating up and down in the air confirming that there was in fact something wrong with the planes ability to stay in the air. The incident ended with a crash only five minutes after the plane's takeoff, killing 152 people

The incident itself was tragic and saddening when I was first notified about it. However, I was immediately worried about the following update made to the article: the fact that the plane that malfunctioned and caused the death of so many people was "the second for the best-selling Boeing aircraft in less than five months." From further investigation, it was discovered that the issue that caused the crash was a rapid acceleration that was abnormally high for a plane like the Boeing. That being said, it is highly unlikely that the reason for the crash were the pilots, as both were highly experienced and because plane technology allows for pilots to only be responsible for taking off and landing the plane; the rest of the process is automated while the pilot stands by in case of an emergency.

The disaster was immediately comparable to the October crash of another Boeing 737, operated by Lion Air, in Indonesia. Both took place soon after takeoff, and the crews of both planes had sought to return to the airport. Currently, Boeing released a statement that they were planning on releasing a software update for the planes in order to prevent a tragedy like so from happening again. However, they made a greater emphasis on how they plan to better train pilots for their models of planes. This is to say that Boeing is not taking responsibility for the crashes at all and rather taking a standpoint of generosity to fix the issue. Because Boeing is a company with financial priorities, rather than helping in the current state of affairs, it is rather defending its name in the hopes to divert attention away from the possibility of their planes being faulty. So far there is no investigation on the planes itself but rather those who were piloting the planes. The New York Times promises to update its status once it knows for sure what the cause of the incident was.