Had they paid closer attention to their airspeed. The aircraft could have been saved. By reactivating the system at such high speed, adding further nose down trim, there was no way to keep the aircraft level. Tunnel vision.
Ugh. I just read the report and maintain that the pilots acted incompetently. Though they regained control of the plane and turned off the stab trim system, their reaction took considerable time. The fatal blow, however, is this: distracted by the problem, neither pilot paid attention to the aircraft's speed as they flew along in level flight. They had tunnel vision. You can see in the report that the overspeed clacker began alerting them midway through the incident. With the nose-down trim, this high airspeed exacerbated the difficulty of holding the nose up. Had they slowed down, the aircraft would have been controllable. The moment they reactivated the system at high speed, adding even more nose down trim, they killed themselves and everyone on board.
I also question the lack of clear communication between the two pilots. Examples such as the captain asking the first officer if the aircraft could be manually trimmed and the first officer replying in the negative, with no verification on the part of the captain and no checklist use make me wonder. Maybe they were doing those things. I'd be interested in seeing a transcript. It's understandable why Muilenburg doesn't seem particularly remorseful.
That would be the autopilot disconnect button or, in this case, the trim switch, the pressing of which is the correct immediate response to this occurrence, followed by the disabling of the system using switches on the center pedestal. While it's certainly hazardous for Boeing to knowingly expose pilots to this occurrence, I'm also conflicted by the fact that they failed to respond properly. The procedure is similar on Boeing, Airbus, Embraer and Bombardier aircraft. Standardized, in a way.
I don't think that's avoidable. The demand is too high right now. Personally, I'd like to see increased automation and "low-pilot" aircraft enter service.
In response to future 'trim system/AOA sensor' comments: Transport aircraft have a procedure to cut out a runaway/malfunctioning trim or stick pusher. Usually, this procedure is to press and hold the autopilot disconnect button on the yoke/stick or the trim switch and then, later, deactivate the system. The pressing of the autopilot disconnect button or trim switch is a 'memory item', meaning that it should be performed immediately, without a checklist, upon recognizing that there's a problem. Previously, this malfunction has been a rare occurrence, and so can be startling to pilots or not immediately recognized. I've seen pilots fail to apply the procedure and crash many times in the simulator, even after being told it was coming. It could be said that the pilots of the Lion Air aircraft and, potentially, this Ethiopian aircraft should have known the procedure and reacted properly, however, for Boeing to put them in this situation is, in my opinion, also quite hazardous. With so many hastily trained and low-competence airline pilots flying around, should we really rely on them to understand the technology and react properly?
A completely different situation, but a Las Vegas controller had a stroke while on duty not long ago. You can hear in the transmissions that as the situation goes on the pilots stop obeying and begin verifying instructions -https://youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=Jv1kmuFOhWk.
I often visit a pedestrian friendly small community in Queens. The number of very old people I see walking around is amazing. Tragically, the intersections are dangerous and people drive fast through the narrow streets. There's little traffic enforcement and, since Americans don't think about this stuff, nobody seems to care. Walkability is being developed away in the surrounding areas. It's so sad.
I think some of us who hate cars (me included) also picture development patterns where cities aren't so sprawling that those with disabilities would have trouble getting around. In your case, a walk/bike ride across town might not be necessary. The market would be nearby, accessible to you via some small electric vehicle that operates on something closer to a human scale than a Ford F150. Heck, even the design of buildings themselves cause you problems because of cars. Instead of a small market, we have big box stores that require one to move significantly further while shopping.
How would this work when our cities have been so heavily developed to favor the automobile? I'm for road users paying for the roads or access, but public transit is so lightly used in most of the US and there's so little existing infrastructure that it's at a severe disadvantage and can't take advantage network effects or economies of scale. Instead of a train near my house, there's an interstate highway. Our cities are already so sprawling and NIMBYism so strong. I wonder if it's too late for transit.
I agree that that more focus should be placed on the system, however, with so many NTSB reports naming "pilot error" as the cause of accidents/incidents, I think we're still very much focused on the the pilots.
Maintaining the roads and infrastructure associated with sprawl places a huge financial burden on cities that often can’t be supported by local taxes alone, not to mention the cost to individuals. Look at how much American consumer debt is tied up in cars. Definitely unMAGA. It also wastes a huge amount of land and isolates people as they move from work to home to their various other destinations, always sequestered away from others. Nothing is human sized, it’s car sized. People are welcome to live how they want, but they should also have to shoulder the cost of the negative externalities associated with their lifestyle. Of course, NIMBYism also often prevents denser development. It’s a vicious cycle. Here’s a screenshot from a video I took in Queens the other day - https://imgur.com/a/iShA4yV. No bike lane on this street, surrounded by pedestrians and in a walkable community (Kew Garden), yet, even in dense NYC, we’re prioritizing making enough room for this giant truck over humans. All these hardworking tax payers in Kew (who don’t drive) supporting the storage of this private property over the improvemt of their community. It seems quite backward to me.
It isn’t. Your footprint becomes much smaller once you get out of your car. There are walkable/bikable areas all over the place that are livable, but they may not stand out if one isn’t looking for them.
The scariest thing about Texas growth to me is the insane sprawl that seems to go unchecked in the state. Massive roads lined with gas stations, chain restaurants and big box stores, surrounded by cheaply built homes with four cars in the driveway/garage, just everywhere. It makes me want to leave the country.
The previous flight had PIC stick shaker activation for the entire flight.
PIC gave control to SIC. PIC realized the trim would stop moving with the STAB TRIM switches to CUTOUT.
Flew the rest of the flight with manual trim and no autopilot, stopping at FL280 for RVSM.
I'd consider that even more dangerous. Stick pushers actually activate before the plane stalls. These large aircraft are designed in a way that a full stall could be catastrophic. Stick shaker events (the thing that happens before the stick pusher) happen quite frequently due to pilot inattention. In this case, an accident occurred, however, more frequently, they save lives.
For a time, I instructed airline pilots in simulators. The aircraft I taught had a similar mechanism with a "cutout switch" like this Boeing. Often, even when they knew it was coming, the pilots would fail to immediately shut down the system when given a related emergency situation, similar to this one. After learning more about this crash, I immediately thought of the tens of times I've seen this happen in the simulator. Sometimes, I'd pause it and ask the pilots if they've realized their error, other times, I'd simply let them crash (poor instructing on my part). In a previous post, this opinion was called racism/profiling, however, I maintain that extreme incompetence exists in many SE Asian airlines. The particular airline for which I instructed (in the US) had many low-ability pilots, and the reaction of these Lion Air pilots matches theirs exactly. We need to increase automation and, little by little, continue to remove the pilot from the equation until we have pilotless/single-pilot commercial aircraft. Humans simply aren't meant to "become the machine", which is essentially what we're asking airline pilots to do.
As an average potential software engineer in the Midwest, it's at first exciting to see these salaries, but I also feel the need to check myself and realize that, in some ways, this is another universe to which I probably don't have access.
Or I was going to sleep and didn’t want to stay up to write a report on my phone. Use your data but consider my anecdotal comment above. The aviation world is more opaque than one might think, and the governing bodies in certain areas are extremely protective of what is a great source of pride for their countries. I’ve worked with many people from these regions, talked with many people who work with people from these regions, and know many people who have worked in these regions, in addition to the exposure that comes from simply being in this industry. The system is designed to protect you and does its job, even when certain operators aren’t up to par, including the pilots.
Unfortunately don’t have time for a long post at the moment, but as an airline pilot and instructor/check pilot, I can say that extreme incompetence exists in the airline world, especially in Africa, India, SE Asia. There could be some very good reasons that they chose to continue, and often I learn those reasons when the facts are released, discovering that a good decision was made. I’ll be following the investigation, but this one seems somewhat alarming to me. Here’s another of mind-blowing incompetence, also from India - https://www.ajc.com/news/national/airliner-forced-land-after....
Also, more automated, single-pilot/ground operated or pilotless aircraft can’t come soon enough.
While this is true, many of the aircraft that are ferried lack this equipment. Even plenty of airliners are still crossing the pond with just HF and SELCAL.
The Air Line Pilots Association is trying to block the study of single pilot aircraft by framing the law as resulting in the immediate removal of one pilot from the cockpit. Personally, I think future aircraft with one person onboard and one "super dispatcher" monitoring/controlling multiple aircraft on the ground would be much safer. Except for steering around weather, most interventions in A to B flights are caused by air traffic control. Why not just let ATC control the spacing of planes from the ground?
It's interesting that a commercial pilot would buy in to the "risk" bent of this article. Are you an inexperienced/new pilot? I flew into and out of the outer bands of Harvey last month. That portion of the system is no different than any storm. Nor is flying between the bands. That gap is huge compared to a little tiny airplane. No "adrenaline" or "balls" were involved here. Just competence. I'm sure the pilots have had far more harrowing experiences flying back and forth across the US in the summer and the departing passengers were in no danger.