Portuguese investigators have found that an Embraer 190’s aileron cables had not been rigged the way they should have been, before a ferry flight, during which the pilots experienced severe in-flight control problems, in 2018.
The Air Astana aircraft went for scheduled maintenance at the OGMA facility at Alverca do Ribatejo before its departure for Almaty, via Minsk, on the 11th of November 2018. The crew experienced serious instability almost immediately after take off with abnormal attitudes, oscillations, momentary losses of control, and high structural loads during recovery maneuvering. Adverse weather conditions, intense g-forces, and continuous alerts from the cockpit systems worsened the situation. Such was the severity of the situation that the crew sought headings to fly out to sea, in order to ditch the aircraft.Portuguese investigation authority (GPIAA) says that a detailed examination of the E190 confirmed an “incorrect ailerons control cable system installation” on both wings. The six occupants of the aircraft – a captain and two first officers, plus three airline technicians – were all “physically and emotionally shaken” by the subsequent in-flight upset, but escaped serious injury.
GPIAA is continuing with the investigation in order to complete its analysis of the circumstances of the accident, and publish any relevant safety recommendations.

A lack of harmony when global regulators lift the grounding on the Boeing 737 Max will further complicate the plans of international carriers to restore the troubled aircraft to revenue service, said airline chiefs during a lively panel debate at the IATA's World Air Transport Summit in Seoul on the 2nd of June. Carriers operating in large countries like the USA and Canada may operate the aircraft on domestic routes after their regulators allow the 737 Max to return to the skies, but Singapore Airlines doesn't have "the luxury", said the carrier's chief executive Goh Choon Phong. "Everything I operate is international," he says. "Beyond having the approvals of authorities in Singapore, we would need approvals of other countries we operate to."
It is still unclear when the global grounding on the 737 Max will be lifted. The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which was the last major regulator to ground the aircraft, had been in the crossfire for not taking action earlier. Concerns continue to linger over whether the regulator allowed the 737 Max to be rushed through certification.

United Airlines has indicated that it will seek some form of compensation from Boeing for the impact of the 737 Max grounding, says their chief executive Oscar Munoz. "There will be recompense of some sort over time," he says at New York's LaGuardia airport today. "The discussion of that is a bit early. Let's get that aircraft back to flight safely." The carrier has not disclosed the financial impact of the grounding, which took effect in March and affected United's 14 in-service 737 Max 9s. The grounding forced the airline to cancel flights starting in April, and the company recently extended Max-related cancellations until 3 August. It has reduced capacity growth by a percentage point, to up 4-5%, in 2019. Boeing has completed testing a software update to the 737 Max's manoeuvring characteristics augmentation system (MCAS), which investigators have implicated as a factor in both the Ethiopian Airlines and Lion Air 737 Max crashes. Global regulators will begin evaluating the update shortly but none have said when they expect to allow 737 Max back in the sky.
"It's important to recognise that the flying public is going to have a perception," he says today. "Whatever it takes for us to get the public to see it as safe is going to be important." said Munoz.