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Ottawa Tourism and Outaouais Tourism join forces to target UK

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Senior members from Ottawa Tourism and Outaouais Tourism will visit the UK from April 8-10 to promote both regions as a holiday destination.

The delegation, which also includes representatives from Canada’s national museums and from the wildlife experience called Omega Park, will visit Manchester and London, where they are set to meet with leading travel trade partners and top travel media.

The sales mission will conclude with an exclusive co-hosted event taking place at the Argyll Room & Terrace at London’s prestigious No. 4 Hamilton Place.

Ottawa is Canada’s capital with more than one million people. Located in Ontario at the Quebec border, it’s a place where English and French are spoken in the streets. Outaouais is located on the north shore of the Ottawa River, facing Ottawa.

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Tourism Ireland: Ensuring Ireland is “Top Of Mind”

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The second in a series of four Tourism Ireland workshops was held that will take place in France during 2019 to highlight ease of access from France to Ireland and deliver more business to Ireland’s regions in the off-peak season. The first workshop took place in Toulouse in January, with other workshops planned to take place in Lyon and Nice in the coming months.

Tourism businesses from the island of Ireland and France came together in Bordeaux this week to take part in a B2B workshop and networking event organized by Tourism Ireland. The businesses met with local travel agents to inform and educate them about the island of Ireland and, in particular, its lesser-known attractions and hidden gems.

Tourism Ireland’s manager for Southern Europe, Monica MacLaverty, commented, “Our workshop and networking event was an excellent opportunity to meet, and do business with, travel agents in Bordeaux, ensuring that the island of Ireland is ‘top of mind’ for the travel agents this year when recommending and booking holidays for their clients.

“With Aer Lingus and Ryanair flights from Dublin to Bordeaux, our aim is to highlight ease of access to Ireland for people living in this part of France. We are also aiming to drive growth to the regions and to encourage French holidaymakers to travel to Ireland in the shoulder season months.”

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African Tourism Board tackles visitor surety to keep Africa safe for visitors

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The official launch of the newly-founded African Tourism Board is only two weeks away, and the U.S.-based interim Chairman Juergen T. Steinmetz explained the organization’s commitment to keep Africa safe for visitors.

“Knowing weak points and confronting problems is the best approach.”

The African Tourism Board is working with Dr. Peter Tarlow to offer his decades of knowledge and workable approach to African members in the public and private travel and tourism industry.

ATB invited Dr. Tarlow to deliver a keynote address at the upcoming African Tourism Board launch event on April 11 during World Travel Market.

A variety of international speakers are on the impressive list of the launch event. ATB will be introducing an African-based president, while the US-based interim chairman Juergen Steinmetz will stay on as an advisor as he hands over leadership to the new president.

Among the speakers are Dr. Peter Tarlow, head of certified.travel, which had recently merged activities with eTN Corporation.

Dr. Peter Tarlow has been working for over two decades with hotels, tourism-oriented cities and countries, and both public and private security officers and police in the field of tourism security.

Tourism and More international staff includes some of the leading experts in the field. Dr. Peter Tarlow is a world-renowned expert in the field and a highly-published author.

Dr. Peter E. Tarlow is an internationally-recognized speaker and expert specializing in the impact of crime and terrorism on the tourism industry, event and tourism risk management, and tourism and economic development. Since 1990, Dr. Tarlow has been aiding the tourism community with issues such as travel safety and security, economic development, creative marketing, and creative thought.

Dr. Tarlow is currently consulting the travel security team for the Jamaica Ministry of Tourism.

Peter Tarlow has worked with numerous US government agencies including the US Bureau of Reclamation, US Customs, the FBI, the US Park Service, the Department of Justice, the Speakers Bureau of the US Department of State, the Center for Disease, US Supreme Court police, and the US Department of Homeland Security. He has worked with such US iconic locations as the Statue of Liberty, Philadelphia’s Independence Hall and Liberty Bell, the Empire State Building, St. Louis’ arch, and the Smithsonian’s Institution’s Office of Protection Services in Washington, DC.

Dr. Tarlow has been a keynote speaker for governors’ tourism conferences around the nation including those for Illinois, South Carolina, South Dakota, Washington State, and Wyoming.

He has addresses large-scale US government meetings for such agencies as:

  • The Bureau of Reclamation
  • The US Center for Disease Control
  • The US Park Service
  • The International Olympic Committee

On the international scene he has addressed conferences such as:

  • The Organization of American States (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Panama City, Panama)
  • The Latin American Hotel Association (Quito Ecuador, San Salvador, El Salvador and Puebla, Mexico)
  • The Caribbean Chiefs of Police Association (Barbados)
  • The International Organization for Security and Intelligence – IOSI  ((Vancouver, Canada)
  • The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Ottowa
  • The French Hotel Association CNI-SYNHORCAT (Paris)

Additionally, Dr. Tarlow is a featured speaker for numerous US embassies and with foreign tourism ministries around the world. For example, in his role as an expert in tourism security, he has worked with:

  • Vancouver’s Justice Institute  (2010 Olympic games)
  • The police departments of the state of Rio de Janeiro (2014 World Cup Games)
  • The Royal Canadian Mounted Police
  • The United Nation’s WTO (World Tourism Organization)
  • The Panama Canal Authority
  • Police forces in Aruba, Bolivia, Brazil, Curaçao, Colombia, Croatia, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Serbia, and Trinidad & Tobago

In 2013, the Chancellor of the Texas A&M system named him his Special Envoy. In 2015, the Faculty of Medicine of Texas A&M University asked Dr. Tarlow to “translate” his tourism skills into practical courses for new physicians. As such, he teaches courses in customer service, creative thinking, and medical ethics at the Texas A&M medical school.

In 2016, the international engineering firm Gannet-Fleming appointed Dr. Tarlow its Senior Security and Safety Specialist. Also in 2016, Governor Gregg Abbot of Texas named Peter as the Chairman of the Texas Holocaust and Genocide Commission. As such, he has wide experience in dealing with protest marches and other public events that touch upon that theme.

Dr. Tarlow organizes tourism security conferences around the world, including the International Tourism Safety Conference in Las Vegas along with conferences in St. Kitts, Charleston (South Carolina), Bogota, Colombia, Panama City, Croatia, and Curaçao.

He lectures and trains tourism professionals and security personnel in multiple languages on a wide range of current and future trends in the tourism industry, rural tourism economic development, the gaming industry, issues of crime and terrorism, the role of police departments in urban economic development, and international trade. Some of the other topics about which he speaks are: the sociology of terrorism, its impact on tourism security and risk management, the US government’s role in post terrorism recovery, and how communities and businesses must face a major paradigm shift in the way they do business.

Dr. Tarlow publishes extensively in these areas and writes numerous professional reports for US governmental agencies and for businesses throughout the world. He has been asked to be an expert witness in courts throughout the United States on matters concerning tourism security and safety, and issues of risk management.

As a well-known author in the field of tourism security, Dr. Tarlow is a contributing author to multiple books on tourism security, and he publishes numerous academic and applied research articles regarding issues of security including articles published in The Futurist, the Journal of Travel Research, and Security Management. His wide range of professional and scholarly articles include subjects such as: “dark tourism,” theories of terrorism, economic development through tourism, and religion and terrorism and cruise tourism. Dr. Tarlow also writes and publishes the popular on-line tourism newsletter Tourism Tidbits read by thousands of tourism and travel professionals around the world in its English, Spanish, and Portuguese language editions.

Among the books that Dr. Tarlow has authored are:

  • Event Risk Management and Safety(2002).
  • Twenty Years of Tourism Tidbits: The Book (2011)
  • Abordagem Multdisciplinar dos Cruzeiros Turísticos (co-written 2014, in Portuguese)
  • Tourism Security: Strategies for Effective Managing Travel Risk and Safety (2014)
  • A Segurança: Um desafío para os setores de lazer, viagens e turismo, 2016 published (in Portuguese) and republished in English
  • Sports Travel Security (2017)

At numerous universities around the world, Dr. Tarlow lectures on security issues, life safety issues, and event risk management. These universities include institutions in the United States, Latin America, Europe, the Pacific Islands, and the Middle East. He earned his Ph.D. in sociology from Texas A&M University and also holds degrees in history, in Spanish and Hebrew literatures, and in psychotherapy.

Dr. Tarlow has appeared on national televised programs such as Dateline: NBC and on CNBC and is a regular guest on radio stations around the US. He is the recipient of the International Chiefs of Police highest civilian honor in recognition for his work in tourism security.

Peter is a founder and president of Tourism & More Inc. (T&M). Tourism & More recently joined forces with the eTN Corporation under certified.travel.

He is a past president of the Texas Chapter of the Travel and Tourism Research Association (TTRA), and Dr. Tarlow is a member of the International Editorial Boards around the world.

For more on the African Tourism Board and the launch event in Cape Town on April 11, visit africantourismboard.com.

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“Can no longer serve French territory”: France bans Iran’s Mahan Air

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France has revoked the license of Iranian airline Mahan Air from April 1 on its activities outside of Europe, Reuters cited three French officials as saying on Monday.

The decision follows a similar German move in January. It was made on the grounds of the airline transporting military equipment and personnel to Syria and other Middle East war zones, according to two diplomatic sources.

“Mahan Air can no longer serve French territory as of April 1,” a French Foreign Ministry official said.

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Festival de Lanaudière: International stars and prestigious beginnings

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The Festival de Lanaudière’s Artistic Director Renaud Loranger has announced four new concerts in the artistic programming of the 42nd edition of the Festival de Lanaudière. They feature the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (OSM), Orchestre Métropolitain (OM), Venice Baroque Orchestra, and violinist Christian Tetzlaff. The Festival runs from July 5 to August 4 this year.

The OSM has been invited to give the Festival’s opening concert on Friday, July 5. Renowned French conductor Alain Altinoglu makes a return appearance at the helm of the OSM after his highly acclaimed performance with this orchestra last fall. Pianist Francesco Piemontesi, who began his career performing throughout Quebec and notably at Lanaudière, is the featured soloist. Some of the great literary classics have inspired the works on this program: Felix Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Piano Concerto No. 1, Richard Wagner’s Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, and Till Eulenspiegel by Richard Strauss.

On Saturday, July 6, the Amphithéâtre Fernand-Lindsay welcomes the OM and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, along with a great lady of French opera, mezzo-soprano Susan Graham. Audiences will be treated to nineteenth-century composer Louise Farrenc’s Symphony No. 2, after which Susan Graham will join forces with the orchestra to transport us to the world of mythical and legendary characters, with a performance of La mort de Cléopâtre by Hector Berlioz. The concert will conclude with excerpts from Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette and will be the first event in the season to mark the 150th anniversary of Berlioz’s death (#Berlioz150). An evening of pure Romanticism!

On Sunday, July 7, the exceptional Venice Baroque Orchestra makes a long-awaited return to Quebec, leading audiences on a journey from Naples to Venice at the time of Vivaldi. The ensemble will explore the flamboyant beauty of this composer’s works, including the famous Four Seasons, as well as those of his contemporaries. Nothing less than explosive!

Finally, German violinist Christian Tetzlaff will perform at the Église de la Purification in Repentigny on Monday, July 29, in what will be his only summer season concert on Canadian soil. His programme features several essential works from the repertoire for unaccompanied violin: a Sonata for Solo Violin by Eugène Ysaÿe, Johann Sebastian Bach’s Sonata for Solo Violin No. 3, several pieces by György Kurtág, as well as Béla Bartók’s Sonata for Solo Violin.

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Italy travel: Destination Baia and Latina steps into the video limelight

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In 2017,  “The Year of the  Borghi” was celebrated in Italy. According to the directive of the former Minister, Dario Franceschini, the initiative was created with the intention of enhancing lesser-known cultural tourist destinations among small towns and cities characterized by a broad historical and cultural heritage, representing ideal destinations for slow  and sustainable tourism.

Among the lesser-known villages is Baia and Latina, a smaller village rich in history and a historical and cultural heritage celebrated by Pliny the Elder for the pure air and the quality of the land. The municipality located between the Trebulani mountains and the course of the Volturno river, a crossroads of goods and cultures between Lazio, Campania, and Sannio, preserves the cultural characteristics of its own tradition favorable to evaluate and insert its presence in the list of the minor Borghi of Italy.

 

Baia and Latina, in the province of Caserta, the ancient belonging to an Etruscan colony has attributed the credit that Enea would have stayed in Latina and his father Latino would have built a temple sacred to Minerva and given the name to the village.

Other versions trace the origins of the borgo back to the Samnite period. The two villages today form a single municipality, a decision dating back to the period of French domination (1806-14) and the subsequent one, during the Bourbon domination.

The houses of the borgo have medieval conformations highlighted in part by the important structures: towers and castles perched to guard its territory. Together with the numerous palaces and archaeological finds dating back to the period of its origins.

 

What remains of the past reflects a historical reality that can be read on the stones of its houses, churches, noble palaces and castles. Structures that climb upwards through alleys and narrow streets that sometimes seem to disappear inside the houses and then re-emerge in an open space or a small square where the sunlight is finally free to radiate.

The doors of the houses maintain characteristics that evoke distant times. And therefore  charm, pleasure of being immersed in the lifestyle unchanged over time. Imagine living in distant ages just 50 km from the nearby metropolis: Naples and 25 from Caserta with its majestic Royal palace.

The Year of Italian Villages met with great interest by Italian municipalities from North to Sicily and developed promotional initiatives with highly encouraging results, creating new sources of tourism that have decreed success: the statistics published at the end of the Borghi year indicate an increase in 7% of national tourism and foreigners in particular from Asian countries – China and Japan.

 

The ambitious plan of the mayor of Baia and Latina, Giuseppe Di Cerbo, in office since June 2016 is to bring his borgo to the attention of an increasingly high number of visitors, more than those who arrived on the occasion of the celebration of ” Living Nativity “celebrated at Christmas 2018, artistically improved under his direction. And, create initiatives to stimulate daily visits, even to the extent of raising the destination slowly to success. Then enter triumphantly in the official catalog of the Italian minor villages.

With a visit to the borgo, the opportunity to get more information from the mayor presented itsel.

eTN: In the area of the ancient village, many houses have been identified in a state of abandonment and decay. Is there a plan for their recovery?

Mayor: The request for subsidies for the restoration was sent to the European Union (UE) without result as the granting of EU funds requires the participation of private capital to the extent of 25% of the total value for the restoration.

The owners of the buildings are unable to invest. But, we have obtained regional funding with an EU contribution to the settlement of water shortage.

eTN: What is your program to improve the life of the borgo?

Mayor: Among the priorities stands  the creation of a receptive system, that is the Bed & Breakfast and the expansion of the sewerage network. For this we are waiting for funds from the region. The redevelopment of the Volturno river, improving aid to buffalo farmers through the Rural Development Program (PSR) [is also a priority].

Baia and Latina the first small town in Italy equipped with video surveillance.

A historical plaque affixed to a building tells: “Here in the tormented years of the new kingdom of Italy, November 10, 1863, the mayor, Antonio Scotti, and his wife, Francesca Lacracchi, after heroic resistance disdaining surrender to the brigaders horde that had set fire to the house perished among the flames.”

eTN: Mayor, is this what motivated your project of video surveillance of the village?

Mayor: The project, in fact, was started by my predecessor as prevention of the national problem on the small delinquency that has also affected our territory. We believed it right to continue and delegated the public works councilor Antonio Brancaccio to finalize it to be active on the 24 hours, round the clock, with great satisfaction of the inhabitants (about 2,400).

The security cameras will be connected to the data reception center of the Carabinieri barracks. My plan includes the Internet system entrusted to the architect Christian Itri.

The village produces dairy products:  mozzarella cheese, salami, and honey. Vegetable production is mainly at the individual level: only private gardens! Visitors can take advantage of small dining options and a larger one in Baglio, the Arco restaurant, whose cuisine offers specialties utilizing local products.

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Lufthansa launches seven new European destinations from Munich

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During this year´s summer flight schedule Lufthansa launches seven new destinations in Germany and Europe. There are several weekly flights to Strasbourg and Rostock for the first time, and the offer is being extended to Spain, France, Italy and Croatia. “The summer timetable offers business travellers important connections via Munich to the rest of the world. Holidaymakers can also look forward to attractive new holiday destinations, especially around the Mediterranean,” says Wilken Bormann, Lufthansa CEO Hub Munich. Lufthansa is flying from Munich to 140 destinations in 46 countries this summer. These include 113 destinations in Germany and Europe that can be reached non-stop from the southern Lufthansa hub.

On April 9, Lufthansa will be taking off from Munich to Strasbourg for the first time. As the seat of the European Parliament, the city in Alsace is an important business destination. But Strasbourg is also interesting for short-term holidaymakers: The old town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Bombardier CRJ900 brings passengers to Strasbourg five times a week, offering an optimal option for business and leisure travelers.

Alicante is on the Munich flight plan for the first time on April 12. An Airbus A320 will fly to the port city on the Costa Blanca three times a week.

Until now, Tivat has been considered a little-known holiday destination. Now, a less than two-hour flight links the city in Montenegro to Munich. Steeped in history, Tivat is located near the Bay of Kotor and, with its historical settlements by the fjord-like bay, is a UNESCO World and Natural Heritage Site. From April 13, Lufthansa will be taking off in an Airbus A319 to Montenegro every Saturday.

After a long break, Rostock/Laage is back on the Lufthansa flight schedule. From May 1, the CRJ900 will be flying from Munich twice a day and on every Sunday afternoon. Transfer passengers have optimal connections to the worldwide Lufthansa network in Munich.

Also new in the timetable is Biarritz. The seaside resort on the French Atlantic coast will be served every Saturday from May 25 with a Bombardier CRJ900. The legendary holiday destination offers long sandy beaches and is an Eldorado for surfers.

For the first time, northern Croatia is just an hour’s flight away from Munich: Rijeka is the name of the new Lufthansa destination, which is considered the gateway to the Croatian islands. On Saturdays, also from May 25, a Bombardier CRJ900 will fly to the Kvarner Gulf region.

Tourists can now also reach Rimini on the Italian Adriatic coast directly from Munich with Lufthansa. A CRJ900 will touchdown at the popular holiday destination every Sunday from May 26.

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Pilots frantic search for fix while Boeing Max8 went down

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Ethiopian Airlines and Lions Air most likely have the same deadly scenario accordsidng to a report Reuters today reported about the 31-year-old Lions’ Air captain was at the controls of Lion Air flight JT610 flying the Boeing Max 8 when the nearly new jet took off from Jakarta. The first officer was handling the radio, according to a preliminary report issued in November.

The report said:

The pilots of a doomed Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX scoured a handbook as they struggled to understand why the jet was lurching downwards but ran out of time before it hit the water, three people with knowledge of the cockpit voice recorder contents said.

The investigation into the crash, which killed all 189 people on board in October, has taken on new relevance as the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and other regulators grounded the model last week after a second deadly accident in Ethiopia.

Investigators examining the Indonesian crash are considering how a computer ordered the plane to dive in response to data from a faulty sensor and whether the pilots had enough training to respond appropriately to the emergency, among other factors.

It is the first time the voice recorder contents from the Lion Air flight have been made public. The three sources discussed them on condition of anonymity.

Reuters did not have access to the recording or transcript.

A Lion Air spokesman said all data and information had been given to investigators and declined to comment further.

Just two minutes into the flight, the first officer reported a “flight control problem” to air traffic control and said the pilots intended to maintain an altitude of 5,000 feet, the November report said.

The first officer did not specify the problem, but one source said airspeed was mentioned on the cockpit voice recording, and a second source said an indicator showed a problem on the captain’s display but not the first officer’s.

The captain asked the first officer to check the quick reference handbook, which contains checklists for abnormal events, the first source said.

For the next nine minutes, the jet warned pilots it was in a stall and pushed the nose down in response, the report showed. A stall is when the airflow over a plane’s wings is too weak to generate lift and keep it flying.

The captain fought to climb, but the computer, still incorrectly sensing a stall, continued to push the nose down using the plane’s trim system. Normally, trim adjusts an aircraft’s control surfaces to ensure it flies straight and level.

“They didn’t seem to know the trim was moving down,” the third source said. “They thought only about airspeed and altitude. That was the only thing they talked about.”

Boeing Co declined to comment on Wednesday because the investigation was ongoing.

The manufacturer has said there is a documented procedure to handle the situation. A different crew on the same plane the evening before encountered the same problem but solved it after running through three checklists, according to the November report.

But they did not pass on all of the information about the problems they encountered to the next crew, the report said.

The pilots of JT610 remained calm for most of the flight, the three sources said. Near the end, the captain asked the first officer to fly while he checked the manual for a solution.

About one minute before the plane disappeared from radar, the captain asked air traffic control to clear other traffic below 3,000 feet and requested an altitude of “five thou”, or 5,000 feet, which was approved, the preliminary report said.

As the 31-year-old captain tried in vain to find the right procedure in the handbook, the 41-year-old first officer was unable to control the plane, two of the sources said.

Slideshow (2 Images)

The flight data recorder shows the final control column inputs from the first officer were weaker than the ones made earlier by the captain.

“It is like a test where there are 100 questions and when the time is up you have only answered 75,” the third source said. “So you panic. It is a time-out condition.”

The Indian-born captain was silent at the end, all three sources said, while the Indonesian first officer said “Allahu Akbar”, or “God is greatest”, a common Arabic phrase in the majority-Muslim country that can be used to express excitement, shock, praise or distress.

French air accident investigation agency BEA said on Tuesday the flight data recorder in the Ethiopian crash that killed 157 people showed “clear similarities” to the Lion Air disaster. Since the Lion Air crash, Boeing has been pursuing a software upgrade to change how much authority is given to the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, a new anti-stall system developed for the 737 MAX.

The cause of the Lion Air crash has not been determined, but the preliminary report mentioned the Boeing system, a faulty, recently replaced sensor and the airline’s maintenance and training.

On the same aircraft the evening before the crash, a captain at Lion Air’s full-service sister carrier, Batik Air, was riding along in the cockpit and solved the similar flight control problems, two of the sources said. His presence on that flight, first reported by Bloomberg, was not disclosed in the preliminary report.

The report also did not include data from the cockpit voice recorder, which was not recovered from the ocean floor until January.

Soerjanto Tjahjono, head of Indonesian investigation agency KNKT, said last week the report could be released in July or August as authorities attempted to speed up the inquiry in the wake of the Ethiopian crash.

On Wednesday, he declined to comment on the cockpit voice recorder contents, saying they had not been made public.

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Air crash experts: ‘Clear similarities’ between Ethiopian and Lion Air 737 MAX disasters

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French air crash investigators are saying that they have found “clear similarities” between last week’s Ethiopian Airlines crash and last October’s Lion Air disaster. Both 737 MAX aircraft plunged nose-first to their doom.

“During the verification process of the FDR (flight data recorder) data, clear similarities were noted by the investigation team between Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and Lion Air Flight 610, which will be the subject of further study during the investigation,” the BEA said in a statement.

Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 nosedived into a field shortly after takeoff last Sunday, killing all 157 people on board. Lion Air Flight 610 plunged into the sea last October, killing all 189 passengers and crew.

In both cases, the 737 MAX’s MCAS system is suspected to be responsible. The system automatically makes adjustments to the tail angle to keep the plane level in flight. However, false sensor readings can repeatedly trigger the system, forcing the plane into a dive.

The BEA investigators found that the sensor readings in both flights were similar.

In the US, a group of engineers with the Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing claimed over the weekend that Boeing downplayed safety concerns surrounding the MCAS system in a bid to bring the 737 MAX to market before rival Airbus launched its own next-generation narrow body aircraft.

The engineers also claimed that the FAA delegated much of the 737 MAX’s safety testing to Boeing itself, and were content to trust the company’s conclusions. Other air safety regulators around the world then certified the MAX 8 based on the FAA’s thumbs up.

The US Department of Transportation is now investigating the FAA’s approval of the aircraft, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. Federal prosecutors have reportedly issued a subpoena to at least one person involved in the development of the 737 MAX.

The aircraft remains grounded worldwide after the Ethiopian Airlines disaster. The FAA has said it may take “months” for Boeing to apply the necessary software updates to rectify any problems with the MCAS system.

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Air crash experts: ‘Clear similarities’ between Ethiopian and Lion Air 737 MAX disasters

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French air crash investigators are saying that they have found “clear similarities” between last week’s Ethiopian Airlines crash and last October’s Lion Air disaster. Both 737 MAX aircraft plunged nose-first to their doom.

“During the verification process of the FDR (flight data recorder) data, clear similarities were noted by the investigation team between Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and Lion Air Flight 610, which will be the subject of further study during the investigation,” the BEA said in a statement.

Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 nosedived into a field shortly after takeoff last Sunday, killing all 157 people on board. Lion Air Flight 610 plunged into the sea last October, killing all 189 passengers and crew.

In both cases, the 737 MAX’s MCAS system is suspected to be responsible. The system automatically makes adjustments to the tail angle to keep the plane level in flight. However, false sensor readings can repeatedly trigger the system, forcing the plane into a dive.

The BEA investigators found that the sensor readings in both flights were similar.

In the US, a group of engineers with the Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing claimed over the weekend that Boeing downplayed safety concerns surrounding the MCAS system in a bid to bring the 737 MAX to market before rival Airbus launched its own next-generation narrow body aircraft.

The engineers also claimed that the FAA delegated much of the 737 MAX’s safety testing to Boeing itself, and were content to trust the company’s conclusions. Other air safety regulators around the world then certified the MAX 8 based on the FAA’s thumbs up.

The US Department of Transportation is now investigating the FAA’s approval of the aircraft, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. Federal prosecutors have reportedly issued a subpoena to at least one person involved in the development of the 737 MAX.

The aircraft remains grounded worldwide after the Ethiopian Airlines disaster. The FAA has said it may take “months” for Boeing to apply the necessary software updates to rectify any problems with the MCAS system.

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