SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - On the recent two crashes of Boeings 737 Max

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There were several incidents that ended not with crashes but where the pilots had to be told by other pilots knowing the problem what to do and to switch off MCAS. Did these pilot, all of them professionally trained on 737s and with experience, did not know something so profound - their own fault and responsibility - or couldn't they not have have known it since Boeing did not communicate an instructions, as was claimed in this unfoldign story from all beginning on and already during the first of the two crashes...? And also takijhng account the several Boeing employees and engineers that stepped forward on reprted on the intense predssure the company implied on them to use shortcuts to save time and to save time, and then to save time - at all cost.

You know the principle of Occam's razor, I assume. Following it, it was not an individual pilot error, but an intentional bypassing of Boeing's own safety routines, principles and procedures. The part of the management responsible for deciding this policy has to be held liable. 300 are dead, two planes are lost, multi-billion damage has occured, still ticking upwards.

WSJ; BOEING LEFT AIRLINES IN THE DARK ON AOA SENSOR SYSTEM TURNOFF

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skybird (Post 2606370)

A good news in all the bad news for the families of the pilots. The cheap get-out-of-dodge-theory of "pilot error" is almost ridiculous by now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Buddahaid (Post 2606375)

Not really, but you've already decided.

NOT AFTER TODAY'S WSJ ARTICLE; AS A FORMER AMATEUR CESSNA PILOT, THIS REALLY REEKS OF MALFEASANCE: https://images.wsj.net/im-69975?widt...pect_ratio=1.5

Quote:

Boeing Co. didn’t tell Southwest Airlines Co. and other carriers when they began flying its 737 MAX jets that a safety feature found on earlier models that warns pilots about malfunctioning sensors had been deactivated, according to government and industry officials. Federal Aviation Administration safety inspectors and supervisors responsible for monitoring Southwest, the largest 737 MAX customer, also were unaware of the change, the officials said.
The alerts inform pilots whether a sensor known as an “angle-of-attack vane” is transmitting errant data about the pitch of a plane’s nose. Accident investigators have linked such bad data to the deadly Ethiopian Airlines crash in March and the Lion Air crash last year; both planes lacked the alert system.
In the 737 MAX, which features a new automated stall-prevention system called MCAS, Boeing made those alerts optional. They would be operative only if a carrier bought a package of additional safety features. A LITTLE PROFIT MOTIVE ??
Southwest’s management and cockpit crews didn’t know about the lack of the warning system for more than a year after the planes went into service in 2017, industry and government officials said. They and most other airlines operating the MAX learned about it only after the Lion Air crash in October led to scrutiny of the plane’s revised design.
“Southwest’s own manuals were wrong” about the availability of the alerts, said the Southwest pilots union president, Jon Weaks. Since Boeing hadn’t communicated the modification to the carrier, the manuals reflected incorrect information, he said.
The FAA grounded all 737 MAX jets on March 13, three days after the Ethiopian Air accident. Boeing recently said it would book $1 billion in expenses tied to the groundings and related business disruptions.
Boeing hasn’t addressed why it turned off the feature, called “AOA disagree alerts,” without informing customers. After the Lion Air crash, Southwest asked Boeing to activate the alerts on its MAX planes.
This move, along with questions about why the alert system had been turned off, prompted FAA inspectors overseeing Southwest to consider in December recommending that the airline’s MAX fleet be grounded while they assessed whether pilots needed additional training about the alerts. But those internal FAA discussions didn’t go up the agency’s chain of command, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
A Southwest spokeswoman said that before the Lion Air crash, the carrier had assumed the alerts were “operable on all MAX aircraft.” Boeing “did not indicate an intentional deactivation,” she said.
In previous 737 models, the computer-generated alerts appear as colored lights in the cockpit when a plane’s twin angle-of-attack sensors provide significantly different data from each other. In the MAX, they serve the same purpose but additionally are intended to warn pilots that MCAS, the new automated system implicated in both accidents, could misfire because of faulty sensor data.
MCAS commands that automatically push down the nose of a plane when it appears to be in danger of stalling can overpower a pilot’s efforts to get out of a dive by pulling the nose up. In the Ethiopian jet, which lacked the disagree alerts, it took more than four minutes for the pilots to realize that incorrect data from one of the sensors were prompting MCAS to push the jet’s nose down, according to investigators’ preliminary report.
A Boeing spokesman said last week that from now on, “customers will have the AOA disagree alerts as standard” on all MAX aircraft, including those already delivered to airlines. Boeing is devising a new software package that aims to fix MCAS by making it less powerful, while also restoring the alerts.
The moves are among the safeguards the plane maker and FAA have embraced to make MCAS less hazardous if it misfires, and to get the MAX fleet back in the air.

Although the alerts were reactivated, some midlevel FAA officials who oversaw Southwest briefly considered the possibility of grounding its roughly 30 MAX aircraft until the agency established whether pilots needed new training, according to documents reviewed by the Journal.
Less than a month after the Lion Air jet went down, one FAA official wrote that AOA-related issues on MAX jetliners “may be masking a larger systems problem that could recreate a Lion Air-type scenario.”
About two weeks later, other internal emails referred to a “hypothetical question” of restricting MAX operations, with one message explicitly stating: “It would be irresponsible to have MAX aircraft operating with the AOA Disagree Warning system inoperative.” The same message alluded to the FAA’s power: “We need to discuss grounding [Southwest’s] MAX fleet until the AOA Warning System is fixed and pilots have been trained” on it and related displays.
The email discussions, previously unreported, were fleeting red flags raised by a small group of front-line FAA inspectors months before the Ethiopian jet nose-dived last month.
Within days, the concerns were dismissed by some involved in the discussions. These people concluded that the alerts provided supplemental pilot aids rather than primary safety information, and therefore no additional training was necessary. Boeing and the FAA continued to publicly vouch for the aircraft’s safety.
However, these concerns—ranging from potential training lapses to confusion by pilots about the specifics of angle-of-attack alerts—have emerged as high-priority items as Boeing’s decisions about the MCAS face scrutiny. The issues are being pursued by congressional, criminal and Transportation Department investigators, people with knowledge of inquiries said.
On Wednesday, a Boeing spokesman said that while the internal FAA discussions were under way last year, “there was no data that indicated the fleet should be grounded.”
An FAA spokesman said the agency expects to mandate that all 737 MAX aircraft include working disagree alerts.
Testifying before a Senate panel last month, acting FAA chief Daniel Elwell said one important factor is prioritizing what data pilots receive. “Every piece of real estate in a cockpit is precious,” he said. “You put one gauge up there, you are sacrificing another.”
American Airlines Group Inc. was one of the few U.S. carriers that paid for the package of MAX safety features that included the sensor warning lights. The airline has said it did so in part to obtain the warning system.
In a meeting about a month after the first crash, a Boeing executive appeared to acknowledge the importance of the sensor warnings. The executive told American Airlines pilot union officials that American’s MAX cockpit warning lights would have helped them avoid problems like those encountered by the Lion Air pilots, union officials who attended the meeting said. A Boeing spokesman previously said the executive didn’t recall making that statement.

SO FAR NOTHING HAS ALTERED MY PREVIOUS VIEW (POST#3) OF THIS THREAD...EXCEPT THAT IT'S THE AOA SENSOR AND NOT A MACS SENSOR PROBLEM...AND BOEINGS' STOCK PRICE IS REFLECTING MY POSITION....

Quote:

On Monday, Boeing Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg faced tough questions from shareholders about the crisis involving the grounded 737 MAX plane. It is becoming clear that the company was opaque with regulators and airlines in explanations of the jet’s safety features, and there are concerns that heightened scrutiny around certification will push up costs.
Yet evidence of the plane’s importance to the U.S. economy may discourage authorities from punishing the company more than is strictly necessary....Boeing’s commercial aircraft business has been a front-line ambassador of U.S. economic interests abroad, particularly in China.
On Thursday, official data showed a drop in March aircraft shipments. Some economists see this detail of an otherwise encouraging durable goods report as the first sign that the grounding of Boeing’s 737 MAX jet is having a small—but visible—macroeconomic impact.
Airlines, too, are dependent on the jet. Most can’t really switch from the 737 MAX to a competing jet—like Airbus’ A320—because they rely on many other Boeing products.
Friday’s first-quarter gross domestic product data wasn’t affected by the crisis, probably because the company only reduced output in April. In the second quarter, however, the damage to equipment spending and exports—not wholly offset by inventory buildup of undelivered planes—is likely to reduce U.S. economic growth by about a fifth of a percentage point, according to analysts both at Wells Fargo Securities and Goldman Sachs. (BOTH WITH REPUTATION MALFEASANCE ISSUES OF THEIR OWN)
It’s a small impact, which is likely to be partially reversed in the third quarter if Boeing ramps up production again. Still, not every company can boast about showing up in GDP data.
Investors can expect more unnerving Boeing headlines. The company urgently needs to fix its relationship with airlines and regulators to secure its multiyear backlog of jet orders. On Monday, Mr. Muilenburg appeared to deviate from his recent conciliatory tone and outright rejected criticism of how Boeing designed the faulty flight-control system. There are also concerns that heightened scrutiny around certification will push up costs—for starters, it may affect programs such as the 777X and the project for a new midsize airplane.
Yet investors can take some comfort from the company’s unusual degree of market and political power. Airlines and government officials have every reason to find a fix too. The Boeing 737 Max is simply too big to fail.

Quote:

Originally Posted by AKBBY

between Boeing and the ’ kissin cousin' FAA's 'apparent lack of impartial integrity in approving the craft and it's faulty MCAS, a universal truth of aviation holds true: profits first...sardine packed expendible passengers second...small wonder the Ethiopian investigators have turned over the flight recorder data to the French to avoid a FAA cover-up!

And then there is this.

"The disagree alert was tied or linked into the angle of attack indicator, which is an optional feature on the Max. Unless an airline opted for the angle of attack indicator, the disagree alert was not operable."

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47980959

Shouldn't there be always two systems, for redundancy?
Especially when it comes to flying and failure of components, what i learned is "Two is one, one is none".

There are two. The argument is about the sensor disagree alarm being tied to an optional feature.

Sorry i did not enunciate this right - the Boeing 737 MAX does have 2 AoA sensors, but MCAS only takes input from 1 AoA sensor at a time.
So do the inputs 'cycle' in a way, or is the MCAS tied to one aoa sensor? :hmmm:

"The company said it will change the MCAS software to give the system input from more than one AOA sensor."
So: at a time, or at all?
from here:
https://www.seattletimes.com/busines...s-boeings-fix/

Quote:

Originally Posted by Buddahaid (Post 2606441)

Quote:
The inspectors learned that Boeing had opted to make the malfunction signal optional and an extra that would cost more money.
This came after Southwest asked Boeing to reactivate the signal after the Lion Air crash, which killed all 189 people on board.
Boeing had deactivated the signal on all 737 Max delivered to Southwest without telling the carrier.
Neither the airline nor its pilots were aware of these changes when they started flying the planes in 2017, a spokeswoman for Southwest told AFP.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Buddahaid (Post 2606560)

There are two. The argument is about the sensor disagree alarm being tied to an optional feature.

And for the third time, until you finally get it:

Quote:

The inspectors learned that Boeing had opted to make the malfunction signal optional and an extra that would cost more money.
This came after Southwest asked Boeing to reactivate the signal after the Lion Air crash, which killed all 189 people on board.
Boeing had deactivated the signal on all 737 Max delivered to Southwest without telling the carrier.
Neither the airline nor its pilots were aware of these changes when they started flying the planes in 2017, a spokeswoman for Southwest told AFP.

And I would add:

Such a vital thing should not be made an optional at all, it should and must be part of the mandatory base pack like engine temperature gauges and fire extinguishers.

I'm still waiting for you to get it but you're too blinded by wanting get at Boeing to even consider other scenarios. Your not always right but you'll never admit it.

In the near future, a report on these two crashes will be released.

I hope some of you with knowledge in this field of aviation, will translate it into plain English and post it here in this thread.

So far, as I understand, only preliminary reports have been released not a full report.

Markus

Maybe a bit 'sensational', but still :hmmm:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2tuKiiznsY

edit:
We have seen this guy before, presented by Boeing and the FAA.. seems sending the black box to the french was a good idea. He had blamed it on the pilots, and now..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGM0V7zEKEQ

So the first iteration of the MCAS system is much too powerful, and can not be overcome easily.
And then: Two vanes, system switching to one at this - and to the other at the next flight, cycling, no redundancy.
As asked here by me: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...2&postcount=66
Full responsibilty to Boeing. And the FAA.

Good find, catfishk, the first video nicely illustrates the reasons. Pretty much what I said from beginning on, but better explained than I did.

A few additions, the video is a bit unclear there: MCAS is not new with the 737 max only, it is a system that is in use since long time, but for the new engines and changed airframe geometry, it had to be fed with new data and algorithms of course. And this is what had not been sufficnetly communicated by Boeing. - Next, the re-training was kept on low level to avoid new certification procedures that would have costed much more time and thus would have stopped Boei8njg from starting to try catching up with the leading 320 neo. If Boeing would have announced more intenbsive training, it would have admitted by that that the new plane is not so much similiar to the old one as implied, and thus old certifications would not have been carried over to the new plane, but FAA regulations then would have demanded new certification procedures. This time trap was to be avoided by Boeing at all cost, to allow Boeing starting to race after Airbus' 320 Neos earlier. Airbus by that time already had a solid lead in order numbers.

Boeing is system-relevant to the Us economy, too big to fail, and the FAA thus is urged by every government to be closer to Boeing than is reocmendable or could be accpeted if the independence of the authority from Boeing and the givenrment should have any flesh on its bones. This is old critcism, however. But one we will not hear for the last time. Like Airbus before, Boeing also has been found guilty by the WTO's court to have been illegally subsidized. Its a stiff economic compeoition. And Boeing accepoted twice that it woudl cost lives. That,m and only that - not just some stupid Anmtiu-americanism of mine - is the reaosn why I want to see heads rolling. They overplayed their cards, and now over 300 are dead. The decision making ranks responsible for these politlical failures at Boeing have to lose their heads. But due to the extreme closeness between US polticians withg Boeing plants in their states, and Boeing, I do not believe that too much will happen before I actually see it happening. The first disaster was the consequences of too eager politics, but they did not allow to get stopped by it and pulled no consequences - and thats why I rate the second disaster, as multiple slaughter, if not even murder. It could have been prevented if they would have learned form they first crash. They deliberately refused that. And so: lead them to the gallow.

DOUBLE OOPS FIRST PASSENGERS SECOND: A HISTORY OF FLIGHT CATASTRPHE

WHAT'S REALLY SCARY IS THAT THIS IS NOT NEW: TWO BRITISH COMETS DIED FROM MATALLUGIACL WINDOW STRESS FAILURE AND TWO DC TENS FROM CARGO LATCH INADEQUACY.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Comet:oops: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_96:k_confused:

Quote:

Originally Posted by CATFISH

seems sending the black box to the French was a good idea. He had blamed it on the pilots, and now..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGM0V7zEKEQ

Quote:

Originally Posted by ME

...profits first...sardine packed expendible passengers second...small wonder the Ethiopian investigators have turned over the flight recorder data to the French to avoid a FAA cover-up!

THE $MOKING PI$TOL ....AT LA$T

Quote:

Originally Posted by ME

.....between Boeing and the ’ kissin cousin' FAA's 'apparent lack of impartial integrity in approving the craft and it's faulty MCAS, a universal truth of aviation holds true: profits first...sardine packed expendible passengers second...small wonder the Ethiopian investigators have turned over the flight recorder data to the French to avoid a FAA cover-up!

MEETS

Quote:

Originally Posted by W.S.J.

The safety-certification process that put the Boeing 737 MAX in the air is coming under congressional scrutiny in what is shaping up as a test of the aircraft maker’s influence in Washington.
Boeing Co. and its lobbyists for years pushed to speed up the time it takes to get a new plane certified to fly. Congress and the Federal Aviation Administration—which were both targets of the company’s multimillion-dollar lobbying—supported efforts to delegate some safety-certification functions to Boeing. An internal Federal Aviation Administration review has tentatively determined that senior agency officials didn’t participate in or monitor crucial safety assessments of a flight-control system for Boeing Co.’s 737 MAX jet later implicated in two fatal crashes, according to industry and government officials.
The results, these officials said, also indicate that during the FAA certification process for the 737 MAX, Boeing didn’t flag the automated stall-prevention feature as a system whose malfunction or failure could cause a catastrophic event. Such a designation would have led to more intense scrutiny.
FAA engineers and midlevel managers deferred to Boeing’s early safety classification, the inquiry determined, allowing company experts to conduct subsequent analyses of potential hazards with limited agency oversight. Boeing employees who served as designated agency representatives signed off on the final design, according to people familiar with the findings.
Over the years, the FAA increasingly has relied on so-called authorized designees to act for the agency, with the goal of freeing up government resources to focus on what are deemed to be the most important and complex safety matters. Last year, Congress endorsed and expanded the FAA’s authority to utilize such company resources in approving new aircraft, systems and parts.
Following the two fatal crashes of Boeing 737 MAX airplanes in Indonesia and Ethiopia, lawmakers are questioning whether a new automated antistall system in the aircraft was properly vetted. Several are zeroing in on the Organization Designation Authorization program, established by the FAA in 2005, that allows certain aspects of safety certification to be delegated by the FAA to a plane maker.
That program “left the fox guarding the henhouse,”
Boeing has built an army in Washington of more than 30 in-house lobbyist$ and 16 outside firms to pre$$ for its interests across the federal government.
The company’s $15.1 million in lobbying expenditures in 2018 was the fourth-largest total of any individual company, according to filings compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.
Among the company’s external lobbyists is Norm Dicks, a former Democratic congressman from Washington, where the company has a major presence. Mr. Dicks was hailed in the local press as “Mr. Boeing” during his time in Congress. In 2018, Boeing paid Mr. Dicks $290,000 to lobby his former colleagues on the company’s behalf, primarily concerning a troubled aerial-refueling tanker plane for the Air Force, lobbying records show.
The company’s lobbyists work the halls of Congress seeking to influence everything from the development of future space initiatives to the federal tax code to military-procurement policies.
The company is known to swarm the White House when foreign leaders visit, the better to press the case for the company’s military aircraft and airliners. It was a leading corporate proponent of reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank, one of a number of policy fights that have driven up Boeing’s lobbying spending in recent years. Its lobbying expenditures peaked at nearly $22 million in 2015.

BOTTOM LINE: A SUCCESSION OF SMALL ERRORS (ALA TITANIC) CAUSED TWO AIR DISASTERS; THE ERRORS STARTED AT THE VERY TOP (PROFIT AND DESIGN) AND WORKED DOWN TO FOUR PEOPLE; THE TWO PILOTS IN TWO AIRPLANES INSUFFICIENTLY BRIEFED TO DEAL WITH THEIR AIRCRAFT STALL SENSOR ISSUES...EVERYONE ELSE WAS...'JUST ALONG FOR THE (SHORT) RIDE'! :dead: https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/2/18518176/boeing-737-max-crash-problems-human-error-mcas-faa

So.. deregulation played a part?
" ... the conservative republicans fighting for a "small government" have already diluted, delayed or abolished dozens of protections in almost all sectors. [me thinking of EPA and this !"§$%&!!! Pruitt] The reason for this is called cost, redundancy and annoying bureaucracy. In truth, this happens at the request and pressure of the industry."

Google translation of the german »Spiegel«:
"Control out of control"
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sp iegel.de%2Fwirtschaft%2Funternehmen%2Fdonald-trump-boeing-max-737-und-die-us-flugaufsicht-faa-ausser-kontrolle-a-1258713.html

And a british article
"The Boeing scandal is an indictment of Trump’s corporate America":
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...porate-america