Boeing 'inappropriately coached' pilots in 737 MAX testing: U.S. Senate report
reuters.com
reuters.com
That just sounds like such a heartless, psychopathic thing to do. How could they not feel guilty, knowing that their actions could potentially lead to hundreds of people losing their lives?
can we drop this take now?
It's incorrect in the unsaid implication, that extreme scrutiny implies extreme safety.
Also boeing is on thin ice. They would not weather another incident like this.
So in this case, I think it does mean extreme safety.
One would think so, if normal rules applied. But it is hard to see how the US would allow Boeing to not weather this, or any other event.
For defense reasons alone it seems unlikely they would ever allow Boeing to fail.
Defense will remain a segment, but instead of 25% of revenue of the company it’ll be 50-70%, with the the commercial segment nosediving
You seem to have forgotten Amendments 13,14,15.
I'd love for you to make a list of countries that went through such a civil war yet kept the same constitutio.
You're looking at it through modern lens.
That was radical change at the time. They literally fought a war over it.
Meanwhile, France changed their entire constitution for much less. So did many other countries. It was basic incremental even for the time.
The rest of the world is irrelevant to whether or not it is radical within the context of America.
Your point makes zero sense given that American fought literally its most bloody war America to make abolishing slavery a reality.
Comparing us to other places is fallacious. Your example of France in particular makes no sense given that American and France were not in the same starting positions so saying that their ending positions are not the same and that that means it's not radical is illogical. France did not embed chattel slavery into its own foundations.
Simply put, America was much further behind and the progress it did make was a lot for where it started out from.
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/instagram-is-using-false-fa...
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/after-the-deep-state-sabota...
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-on-joe-and-hunter-b...
But lately the guy just sounds crazy. His takes are all incredibly predictable: Biden bad, Trump actually good for this one weird reason, libs hypocrites, Obama is a murderer, etc. All the same, boring, tired takes.
No, he's talking about reality, and you're talking about the mirror-image of reality.
The CCP engaged in "elite capure" with Hunter Biden, while Joe Biden and his advisors stood by.
The libs are hypocrites. See above.
Obama's failure to honor our treaty with the Philippines over Scarborough Shoals resulted in the 9-dash line takeover of the South China Sea, resulting in the largest military buildup in the region since WW2. And none of our treaty allies trust us now.
It appears HN readers have no idea how far off course US politicians and elites are. When journalists from Venezuela and Colombia come to the US and say, "It's just like home." then you know there's a serious problem.
I don't find him boring, usually, though sometimes I fail to relate to something he's exercised about. But he definitely has a different bias than most journalists. I think this is very useful.
But even more, Boeing actually "should" want decent regulation because it gives them long term credibility. The problem others here have point out is that Boeing also wound-up "captured" by a finance/management regime that for twenty years has been gutting the company's long term prospects for short term profits - the ridiculous amalgam that is the 737 Max demonstrates this (it has paper manuals still, guess why?).
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics)
What happened with the Hungarian and Polish veto was terrifying for me: the governing prime ministers got away with all the money stealing despite the huge criticism. The only rational explanation is that they will continue chanelling lots of money back to Germany through car companies.
What does the switch do? I have scanned a few articles about this by now, and none of them describe it's purpose or function. Does it turn off MCAS?
No. The electric trim switches override the MCAS signal (in addition to resetting the timer). You can just hold them on until the trim is normal. This is indeed what both the LA and EA crews did repeatedly, they just did not then turn off the stab trim.
This procedure is detailed in the Emergency Airworthiness Directive sent to all MAX pilots after the first crash.
Boeing Emergency Airworthiness Directive
"Initially, higher control forces may be needed to overcome any stabilizer nose down trim already applied. Electric stabilizer trim can be used to neutralize control column pitch forces before moving the STAB TRIM CUTOUT switches to CUTOUT. Manual stabilizer trim can be used before and after the STAB TRIM CUTOUT switches are moved to CUTOUT."
https://theaircurrent.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/B737-MA...
It's informally called a pickle switch.
A flaw in procedure that led to the initial catastrophes is at least understandable in terms of insidious errors in complex systems.
A continuation after the initial error is hard to explain other than by deliberate personal moral failure.
Perhaps that has some bearing on the problem?
No, just denial: Look, it's a safe plane. We know it's a safe plane. Sure, it's not exactly like the earlier model, but those rules are needlessly strict. This plane is better, we know it's better. And pilots aren't idiots. They'll figure it out.
As we all learned, there's no single feature you can point to in the MAX that was a bad engineering decision in isolation. So if you don't want to see bad engineering, you don't have to.
I'm not punishing Boeing, I'm punishing Southwest and American Airlines at that point - and probably myself too, as I live immensely close to DFW (I just heard an airplane land).
I don't have a hard time believing that we won't see any more MCAS-related trim runaway accidents after the scrutiny of the past two years, but what evidence do we have that the dysfunctional leadership behind this particular flaw is the exception rather than the rule?
When the Max was flying, it was still extremely unlikely that you'd die on one, but dying is a pretty big deal (to me, at least). For the foreseeable future, I'll be choosing alternatives to Boeing when they're available.
These problems are found, fixed, lessons learned, new rules enacted, and we move on.
The problems we have is an organization tasked with transporting millions over the timespan of a year at speeds approaching Mach 1 ended up in tge position whereby financial growth outpaced it's primary reason for existence. To manufacture and support the distribution, operation, and uptake of safe passenger airplanes.
Until you get rid of that modus operandi from the upper management, you'll not see a significant culture change.
I think the key thing is a fine is always just another line on the spreadsheet.
And, you must admit that Boeing has shown utter disregard for rules through this process.
That was only done due to concern for profits and not due to any engineering flaws. (MCAS existing in the first place, it didnt have reliable sensors, pilots were not instructed on it)
How would you react if a loved one died due to boeing or any company greed?
Cynic in me is hoping this is only allowed to fly in the US until it proves safe and boeing execs and employees are forced on every damn flight.
I'm not really convinced this is true. For instance, in the classic case of de Havilland Comets brought down by square windows, I think it was an honest mistake that happened because pressurized cabins were new-ish tech. They worked to understand the problem and fixed the design. Nobody was trying to cut corners AFAIK (no pun intended).
I guess we could make another category where an iffy design is made to fail by corner-cutting on the part of the airlines, as in the MD-80 pitch trim jackscrew issues.
The MAX is a case of the actual aircraft manufacturer explicitly compromising the design of a safety feature because they knew it would help them sell more planes (due to avoiding training/recertification requirements). IIRC, the investigation revealed a consistent pattern of negligence and outright malfeasance on Boeing's part to this effect. I wouldn't say this kind of thing has never happened before, but off the top of my head I have to assume it's pretty rare.
The error was not in the concept of the MAX nor the concept of the MCAS. The problem was twofold:
1. MCAS should have used inputs from both AOA sensors, rather than just one. MCAS had too much authority over the travel, and it should have deactivated itself if the pilots repeatedly countermanded it.
2. The pilots were not trained properly in emergency procedures with the stab trim. Boeing put out an Emergency Airworthiness Directive after the first crash with explicit instructions on how to deal with it, but the EA pilots did not follow those instructions.
https://theaircurrent.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/B737-MA...
If the planes are still crashing after the "problem" was fixed, then that wasn't the problem.
(Specifically - the "emergency procedures" in question are "what to do if your plane randomly decides to fly you into the ground". The only way to save your skin is to take a specific emergency action within a time window of a few seconds. This is not a reasonable design.)
-- Aviation Week, Sep 1, 2019
As for being an emergency, yes it was, and dealing with emergencies is most of pilot training. Dealing with runaway trim (which is how this failure exhibited) is part of that training. The Emergency Airworthiness Directive reiterated what the procedure was for runaway trim.
Runaway trim is so serious that it is a "memory item" meaning the pilots know how to deal with it without needing to consult a checklist.
While runaway trim should never happen, it is reasonable to expect the pilots to deal with it properly.
That's not what I said.
If you don't take mitigating actions within a time window of a few seconds, you are locked into an unrecoverable situation - however long you might fight it afterwards.
Specifically - the trim wheel is too stiff to correct if the stabilizer is loaded, so if the MCAS is allowed to wind the stabilizer to its extreme position, the pilot must - after disabling the MCAS (and therefore also the electric trim) - unload the control column to correct the situation, which will send the aircraft straight into the ground. Hence the undulations seen in the flight paths of the crashed aircraft.
The MCAS was designed under the assumption that pilots would respond to unexpected activation within 3 seconds:
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/times-watchdog/the...
The EA crew dealt with the situation for 5 minutes, the LA crew for 25 minutes. Both crews used the electric trim switches to restore normal trim, multiple times. The trim switches are on the control column right under one's thumb. All the reports saying it was impossible or unreasonable or there wasn't enough time to do this are false, as both crews did it.
I strongly recommend a more reputable source, like Aviation Week 19-Sep-2019. Also an original source,
https://theaircurrent.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/B737-MA...
There's also an often-cited article going around that's written by a Cessna pilot. His opinions on how jet aircraft should be designed have little to do with reality - high altitude high speed jets are very, very different from a low and slow Cessna. (The Air Force thought it would be easy to transition their experienced propeller pilots to jets. A lot of crashes and dead pilots changed their minds.)
The reason MCAS was introduced in the first place was because the platform that Boeing chose to extend (to avoid recertification requirements) was unstable as a result of the introduction of CFM's new LEAP engines.
They insisted on correcting an emergent hardware defect with software in order to reuse an old platform to compete against a surprise threat from Airbus rather than design an inherently safe, novel platform.
All to save time and money getting to production.
I.e. all for profit.
As for the emergency procedures Boeing drafted after Lion Air, they apparently were attempted: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boein... — and more recently https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/04/ethiopian-airl...
No, it was not unstable. It just behaved differently enough that some additional pilot training would have been needed without MCAS.
> rather than design an inherently safe
All jetliners are unstable and require active augmentation.
> they apparently were attempted
No, they were not. The procedure is:
1. trim to normal with the electric trim switches
2. turn off the stab trim switches.
That's it.
https://theaircurrent.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/B737-MA...
The LA crew never turned off the trim after trimming to normal. The EA made a different mistake - turning off the trim when it was too far from neutral.
Neither the Seattle Times nor The Guardian are reliable sources on aviation. Aviation Week is a lot better. The Times author apparently did not read the EAD he cited. I'll quote from it the relevant bit:
https://theaircurrent.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/B737-MA...
"Initially, higher control forces may be needed to overcome any stabilizer nose down trim already applied. Electric stabilizer trim can be used to neutralize control column pitch forces before moving the STAB TRIM CUTOUT switches to CUTOUT. Manual stabilizer trim can be used before and after the STAB TRIM CUTOUT switches are moved to CUTOUT."
Note that the flight data recorder showed that both crews had moved the trim back to normal with the trim switches, and neither thought to then turn it off.
Quoting Boeing with my own emphasis:
> MCAS, or Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, is a flight control law implemented on the newer models of the 737 to provide consistent airplane handling characteristics at elevated Angles of Attack in certain unusual flight conditions only.
Which, to be clear, means it's intended to stabilize the plane ("consistent") in circumstances where the physical design of the plane would render the plane unstable (inconsistent) in certain operating environments.
> The EA made a different mistake - turning off the trim when it was too far from neutral.
Do you have a specific citation for this? I'm digging through the ECAA report and am not able to find this specific mention. https://web.archive.org/web/20200310004955/http://www.aib.go... (original site is timing out)
---
It seems you're generally suggesting that the instructions provided by Boeing were sufficient for the plane to remain airworthy without further mitigation; this was contradicted by the ECAA and others. Is this what you're suggesting?
Stability has a different meaning when applied to aerodynamic characteristics than they way you mean it (i.e. consistency). Stability in aerodynamics means if you push something off-center, it will return to center. Unstable means it will go further off-center.
Unstable is like balancing a pencil on its point. The slightest perturbation will cause it to fall over.
> Do you have a specific citation for this?
Aviation Week 19-Sep-2019
" The MCAS activated twice, and the crew countered with electric trim. Unlike the JT610 pilots, the ET302 crew flipped the stabilizer trim motor cut out switches, which stopped the MCAS from moving the stabilizer. But after reporting not being able to manually trim the aircraft, they flipped the cut out switches on again. The faulty AOA data was still feeding the left-side FCC, activating the MCAS again and putting the aircraft into a dive."
(The airplane was already in a dive when they turned off the stab trim.)
> It seems you're generally suggesting that the instructions provided by Boeing were sufficient for the plane to remain airworthy without further mitigation; this was contradicted by the ECAA and others. Is this what you're suggesting?
Yes. In fact, on the flight immediately preceding the LA crash, the same MCAS problem was experienced, and the crew returned the trim to normal with the electric trim switches and then cut off the stab trim. They landed safely without further incident.
Exactly what Boeing's EAD stated to do.
But I have to disagree with your counter around airworthiness. Even after adjusted training, a plane crashed, and ultimately two planes crashed from the same issue regardless of the fact that the latter team was trained on the matter. At that point, the correction should be in hardware and controls, not in crew expectations.
I suspect we fundamentally disagree at this point, but I'm glad the rest of the world has concluded on the in the direction of correcting the plane rather than increasing human expectations.
The way aviation is made safe is by fixing all contributing factors to crashes.
Lol.
As if Boeing would ever be allowed to go out of business.
Two fatal crashes in the hundreds of thousands of flights for Boeing 737 Max alone is still a ridiculously small number for something as potentially dangerous as powered flight.
I get it in the case of organizational rot but sometimes it can be staring people in the face and they still don't get it, e.g. in the case of vaccines—who needs them, when nobody gets those diseases anymore?
If a disease becomes rare enough that the probability of getting it if you're not vaccinated, is less than the probability of harmful side effects from the vaccine, then it is rational for an individual not to get vaccinated.
The proper response to this at a societal level is to further reduce the risk of harmful side effects from vaccines (for example, by using refrigeration more aggressively as an alternative to preservatives which have a small, but nonzero, risk of harm), not to brand people who don't want to get vaccinated against rare diseases as crackpots.
This is actually an illustration of the more general problem we have as a society: we have forgotten that there are objective criteria we can use to evaluate things, and that as conditions change, we need to re-evaluate based on those criteria instead of just assuming that things that worked in the past will continue to work. In the case of the 737 MAX, Boeing failed to realize that relaxing engineering standards was a bad idea because the company had been taken over by a different corporate culture, and a regulatory regime that had grown to trust airframe manufacturers based on past information that showed they were worthy of that trust failed to see the change in incentives that made them less worthy of trust than before.
Why is it so hard for people to look at the system instead of just themselves? This inability or unwillingness also seems particularly widespread in the US.
I strongly, strongly disagree with this statement.
First, even in cases like mandatory seat belt wearing, where the benefit is obvious, the rule would be better enforced by private entities like insurance companies. Get in an accident and not wearing your seat belt? Your insurance company won't pay your medical bills. People are more likely to respond to such incentives than to nanny state laws, however well intentioned. Also, once you've passed one nanny state law, it gets easier to pass more; even proponents of such laws admit that most traffic laws, for example, are just revenue sources for local police departments and have no meaningful effect on safety.
Second, restrictions on tobacco and alcohol sales are mostly aimed at not allowing sales to people, like minors, who are presumed not to have developed the full capacity to evaluate the consequences of their actions. They don't stop adults from dying from lung cancer due to smoking or becoming alcoholics. People who really want to poison themselves with drugs or alcohol will find a way to do it: just look at the rising popularity of vaping. The law cannot stop people from doing it and shouldn't try; the US should have learned that lesson with Prohibition.
Third, citing child protective services as an example of bureaucracy taking better care of people than people do themselves is laughable. Anyone who has had personal experience with CPS can tell you horror stories, and what statistics are available do not paint a pretty picture. Based on my own and my wife's experiences (my wife was a social worker for 20 years), I would say that roughly 80 to 90 percent of children who are taken from their families by CPS are worse off than they would have been had they been left with their families, however imperfect those families were. I suspect most people who have had personal experience with CPS would give a similar figure.
Vaccines were never intended to benefit the system at the expense of individuals. Every vaccine was a net benefit to individuals when it was first made available. That is why there was never any serious objection to widespread adoption of vaccines.
There are cases where people might have to sacrifice their own welfare for the good of society, such as military service in combat. But I don't think vaccination is, or should be, one of those cases. If a person believes their risk of harm from a vaccine outweighs the benefit, they should have the right to choose not to take it.
There are also cases where people might have to forgo short-term benefits for the long-term good of society. I think far too little attention is paid to such cases, to the detriment of all of us. But vaccines are not such a case; no one is forgoing a short term benefit by taking a vaccine. Individuals gain a benefit from a vaccine, the question is whether that benefit for the individual is worth taking the small risk of harm from the vaccine.
What does seem like a case where people should forgo a (perceived) short-term benefit for the long-term good of society, is trying to justify things like forcing people to get vaccinated on the basis of flawed arguments and distortions of the facts. And of course Boeing with the 737 MAX is another such case.
But if engineers are saying that something is wrong before the first customer deliveries, and if the company is choosing to take this route purely out of financial benefit to themselves, its criminal.
Flying nowadays is indeed amazingly safe. Boeing really dropped the ball on that one.