Captain of crashed Ethiopian Airline untrained on 737 MAX simulator – Colleague

A colleague of the captain of Ethiopian Airlines flight which crashed on March 10 has said that the captain was untrained.

The 29-year-old Yared Getachew, his colleague said, had been unable to practice on a new simulator for the Boeing 737 MAX 8.

According to the colleague who did not want to be named, Mr Getachew was due for refresher training at the end of March, two months after Ethiopian Airlines received the simulator.

Most commercial airline pilots refresh training in simulators every six months. Investigations have shown that the pilots, in both cases of MAX 8 crash in Indonesia and Ethiopia, lost control soon after take-off and fought a losing battle to stop their jets from crashing.

It was not clear if Yared’s colleague – First Officer Ahmednur Mohammed, 25, who also died in the crash – had practised on the new MAX simulator.

“Boeing did not send manuals on MCAS. Actually, we know more about the MCAS system from the media than from Boeing,” the pilot told Reuters in a hotel lobby. Ethiopian Airlines declined to comment on the remarks of its pilot to Reuters about the simulator and MCAS system.