After Indonesia crash, authorities are investigating Boeing's 737 Max

Kim Malcolm talks with The Air Current editor in chief Jon Ostrower about why the Federal Aviation Administration is looking into potential design problems involving a flight control system on Boeing's 737 MAX.

The investigation comes after an October crash in Indonesia that killed all 189 people on board. Pilots for three U.S. airlines are claiming that Boeing failed to tell them about changes to an automation system.

Listen to the interview by clicking the play button above.

"And the amazing thing, this was a brand new airplane to begin with," Ostrower told KUOW. "So right off the bat, there are questions that are being asked that you don't usually get in an aviation safety investigation."

Airlines wanted more fuel efficiency when Boeing designed the 737 Max, Ostrower explained. So Boeing designed bigger engines, and moved them slightly forward on the plane.

This changed the handling of the plane in certain situations, however, and Boeing designed an automated system to push the nose of the plane over in case the aircraft risked losing control or stalling.

"But what happened was, it was omitted from a lot of the training materials for the biggest airlines on Earth," Ostrower said.

Now the FAA is seeking to understand whether pilots were actually trained on the new system.