Boeing Withheld Information on 737 Model, According to Safety Experts and Others

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_Airlines_Flight...

Totally out of my depth here, but how is it possible that they "didn't tell anyone" about a feature so crucial, how could pilots not know how the plane's computer will behave in such a fundamental, non edge-case scenario?

I recently got a hell of a shock in my fathers BMW: I was driving with cruise control engaged, depressed the clutch, and when I released it, found the car re-accelerating to match it's previous speed. Every other car I've driven has disengaged cruise when the clutch is engaged, so this took be quite by surprise and could have put me in danger.

What if a malicious pilot had been part of the threat model? instead of terrorist-proof cockpit doors, attacker-proof cockpit doors: split the cockpit in half (strong plexiglass), each has their own combination code for their own door. As soon as one pilot starts disobeying ATC, they can choose which pilot gets control of the airplane...

True, the pilots can no longer circle j* during their boring flights...

I believe FAA of US specifically alerted German government's air travel agency (?) about the need to have another crew member (like flight attendant) to be in the cockpit if one of the two had to leave cockpit to use restroom etc, exactly to avoid this kind of scenario.

But the Germany govt agency apparently thought it was unlikely to happen and ignored the recommendation.

I could be wrong, but pretty sure about reading that bit while reading about the incident...

If instruments cannot measure key environmental indicators such as velocity, temperature etc - no amount of automation will save the plane.

Instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) / Instrument Flight Rating (IFR) flights are when the plane is flying through darkness, or through conditions that do not allow for a judgement of the visual elements and therefore pilots can easily make incorrect judgement calls on the position of the plane, leading to a crash.

The pitot tube is a primitive equipment to measure wind velocity and easily can be jammed by ice, insects etc. I think it was the Pitot tube malfunction in this plane that caused the incident.

IMHO the long term solution to improving safety is to make the pilots increasingly redundant. With the current generation of technology this is not yet feasible since they are depending on a wide range of technologies dating back decades. Also a lot of the planes flying are decades old designs. This makes them hard to automate and human-computer interaction has not evolved to the point where a computer can take over these tasks and deal with all the critical human interactions that are involved with operating a plane. In principle the problem is solvable, however. It's mostly just a matter of enough sensors and computation redundancy and improving communication technology to get humans out of the loop.

Mostly pilots these days take executive decisions that boil down to religiously following checklists for basically every scenario imaginable and programming the auto pilot to act accordingly. The auto pilot is activated right after take off and typically disabled on final moments before touch down; or in some cases after landing. Or as in this case, in an emergency.

That's not to marginalize their role. Flying an airliner is a two man operation and they tend to be extremely busy dealing with flying complex procedures, routing around weather, ad hoc queues from controllers, cross checking each other, etc. Most of that stuff requires pilots to have good situational awareness. Most of that awareness is created through reading their instruments, communicating on their radio, and looking outside (when weather permits).

All of that could be automated but it would require a complete rethink of how this business works. For example modern planes are basically equipped with multiple redundant computers and fly by wire control (i.e. a computer controls everything). Yet, critical information is passed to these computers via a non digital communications channel involving people trying to exchange crucial bits of information over a badly congested, low quality radio channel with limited range. This is a ridiculously convoluted, error prone, and hopelessly inefficient way of communicating. The only reason it exists is because agreeing and standardizing on something sensible is going to take decades and has taken decades already.

Most of the chatter on the radio is people cross verifying completely routine information. Worse, people on both sides tend to be very overloaded with information and yet lack the mechanisms to share information other than verbally. Controllers can be juggling communication with dozens of planes and pilots are bogged down in a barrage of instructions, complex procedures, and checklists. A lot of the training focuses on teaching both to stay on top of this (this is very hard). A lot of accidents result from their failure to do so. Emergencies are stressful and stress makes all this even harder.

So, a completely computer based system would do away with most of that to reduce task overload for pilots and controllers and ultimately reduce both of them to the role of remote managers that intervene by exception and very rarely. Ultimately such a system would run itself. Military drones are slightly ahead of the curve here.

https://careers.ryanair.com/pilots/pilotpayincreases/

I think this is outdated from the post-2008 crisis time, when Airlines cut back on flights. Currently there is a massive shortage of pilots, some make 150k ~ 300k in the Middle East of China.

This 'roads are so dangerous' is part of the self driving crowd scaremongering program. That 'humans can't be trusted' but their tech can obviously.

But when looking at the global picture and the sheer number of cars in all sorts of traffic conditions on roads everyday without incident this narrative falls apart.

We need far more facts, data and critically 'contextualization' than sweeping disingenuous statements by parts of the tech community motivated by self interest and greed.

FTFY.

So no: in Airbus planes the pilot can and do absolutely control everything. If needed the pilot can always go into Direct Law. When sensors fail (like the pitot tubes in AF447) Airbus planes step down to Alternate Law. “If the software fails, pilots can take control, unlike in Airbus planes” has never been true.

There is however a difference in that Boeing pilots are supposed to always have the last word without needing to deactivate protections or anything. The plane would for instance apply physical resistance on the yoke to alert the pilot that something is wrong, but pulling/pushing hard enough is enough to override the protection. Well, that was my understanding until this accident (investigation pending, of course).

See http://www.b737.org.uk/flightcontrols.htm

The pitch trim can be controlled by a number of different systems for different reasons, see the section on mach trim for an interesting one. I would be shocked if the inputs here weren't disabled by switching thd stab trim - autopilot switch to the off position.

I've mentioned in previous comments, this sounds like a trim runaway incident. The mechanism may be new but the underlying fault and the symptoms would have been the same.

When autopilot is off, you'll still have stall/overspeed protection that will pitch down/up in the corresponding condition. This protection can also be disabled by switching off some flight computer control. This is the case for both Airbus and Boeing, and the specific controls required depend on the particular plane model.

The issue at hand is ensuring that training for these situations and knowledge of the flight control computers is adequate.

Per trip, it looks different (for two reasons: a) planes are faster than cars, b) plane trips are generally longer than car trips).

You're probably around 10x more likely to die on your next plane trip than on your next car trip, from what I can tell.

They fixed the previous issue[0]. Why is flying a fixed aircraft after following Boeing's own procedures to fix it a "egregious decision?"

[0] https://www.financialexpress.com/world-news/indonesia-plane-...

If you believed your airplane was at imminent risk of a stall, it would be deeply negligent to spend mental cycles talking to ATC instead of fixing it. ATC exists to sequence traffic; they can't fly your plane for you.

Probably because he was too busy trying to keep the plane flying. Also, apparently Boieng hadn't notified the airlines and their pilots about this most recent "feature" that could see the airplane "pushing it down unexpectedly and so strongly that flight crews can’t pull it back up", which certainly must have added to the pilots' confusion in this case.

> That warning came as a surprise to many pilots who fly the latest models for U.S carriers. Safety experts involved in and tracking the investigation said that at U.S. carriers, neither airline managers nor pilots had been told such a system had been added to the latest 737 variant—and therefore aviators typically weren’t prepared to cope with the possible risks.

If you can't Aviate you don't do the other 2

As with any story, don't slavishly follow one source. In fact with aircraft accidents my general advice is to ignore all 'coverage' for a year.

As with any story, don't slavishly follow one source.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_rudder_issues

And these are the kinds of scenarios that continue to make me think autonomous cars in a hybrid environment (i.e. with human drivers) is just absurd. Flying planes is a standardized environment, and we can't even automate it end to end with available technology in idealized conditions, let alone in emergencies. And car driving is way more complicated (and I say that as a pilot).

Having one inch precision for every bit of concrete, light bulb, paint on every airport in the world, is less data than what you'd see in one town, let alone a city, let alone all of them. The infrastructure standardization within a city is poor let alone across the country, and it evolves daily perhaps even by the hour.

> “We’re pissed that Boeing didn’t tell the companies and the pilots didn’t get notice obviously, as well,” said Capt. Jon Weaks, president of Southwest Airlines Co.’s pilot union. “But what we need now is...to make sure there is nothing else Boeing has not told the companies or the pilots.”