a_unique_person
Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
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Ed 737 Max Crashes (was Shutdown caused Boeing crash.)
- Thread starter Bob001
- Start date
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Anyone here still doubting that MCAS was the root cause of both crashes?
Trebuchet
Penultimate Amazing
Nope.
Drummed into me at Boeing: No single failure, or combination of failures more probable than one in a billion flight hours, may cause a catastrophic accident. This was a single failure of a sensor in combination with a badly designed system. In a way, I wish I still had some contacts there. In another way, I'm glad I don't.
I requested a change to the thread title, by the way. Trump's responsible for a lot of bad stuff, but this isn't one of them.
Trebuchet
Penultimate Amazing
Ya know what? I can't really blame the board. It's far below their pay grade. I blame mid-management for not standing up to pressure to do something they knew wasn't quite right.
Delphic Oracle
Philosopher
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2016
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In U.S. business culture, governance is a far distant second to management.
The shareholders control the board, the shareholders want value, board members have a fiduciary duty to maximize said value, and most failures of any kind of ethical nature (oversight, compliance, safety of the public) are blips on the accounting registers. In short: nobody in a position to personally take on the governance role or implement a system for taking that responsibility has any incentive to do so.
Until that changes, nothing else will.
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Without going too far off topic, the functions of corporations are set by law. The idea that they exist only to maximize returns to shareholders is a relatively new development. There is nothing that would prevent revising the laws to require that line workers and community members get seats on the boards, that executive compensation would be limited by a formula related to average employee pay or some other metric, that executives would be criminally liable for gross negligence, etc., etc.
Delphic Oracle
Philosopher
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Same general thrust, different words :9.
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
What I don't get is why anyone designing MCAS system would even consider that it was anything but a terrible idea to rely on a single sensor to provide critical information to a critical system? I mean, they have TWO AoA transmitters (one on either side at the front) but they chose to only take information from the pilot's side.
ETA: As a former Boeing employee, this might interest you, and if you were there at this time (late 1990s, early 2000's) you'll probably find a lot of this familiar.
Its about 30 min long, but you might find it worth the time spent to watch (there is a block of ads from 14:33 to 17:10)
Some of the stuff being described here by the whistleblowers is just shocking
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWxxtzBTxGU
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quadraginta
Becoming Beth
The Verge has a new article summarizing events. It covers ground that most who have been following the story closely are familiar with, but includes some interviews and documentation which may be new to some.
Fairly complete and succinct.
It's worth a read.
Fairly complete and succinct.
It's worth a read.
Trebuchet
Penultimate Amazing
Hmmm, quite a lot to digest there.
First reaction: Forget it Jake, it's Wichita.
Second reaction: Hey, TV producers! If you're making a documentary about the 737, go find file footage of 737's, instead of all the Airbuses, Embraers, and other Boeing models you kept showing!
Third: I'm a systems guy. I'm not familiar with this structural issue. I do suspect that there was a good deal of exaggeration here but can't speak with any authority.
Fourth: Dealing with suppliers -- and I had engineering responsibility for literally hundreds of supplier parts -- was the bane of my existence. And especially dealing with the Boeing buyers, who frequently seemed to forget which company they worked for. I applaud the lady in the video for being on the right side.
Finally, I found the conclusions of the video shaky at best. As far as I know, know NG's have fallen out of the sky due to structural issues. And those three runway overruns they showed looked pretty typical. They airplanes failed at the joins between body sections, just as they always do.
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
It is and it was.
What I see here is a complete and utter cock-up from beginning to end - a total systems failure within Boeing and the FAA of enormous proportions.
I think the 737 Max is done. I would simply refuse to fly in one now - if I'm booking flights anywhere, one of the criteria I will be looking at is what aircraft the airline flies - if its the Max, I'll find another airline.
Trebuchet
Penultimate Amazing
I don't fly anywhere, as a matter of preference. It's not being on an airplane that bothers me, it's all the other crap, getting to the airport, parking, ticketing, TSA, etc. The last couple of airplane rides I've been on were Boeing test flights. Heck, probably the last couple of business trips I took for the company I DROVE to the destination. (Which was Portland, OR.) For the last 5 years or so there, if an opportunity to fly to some exotic destination in Business Class, answer a few questions, and take a few days off came up; they knew better than to even ask me.
That said, once the new software and certification is in place, if I have to fly, I wouldn't hesitate to get on the Max. Heck, it might be safer than the other guys!
That said, once the new software and certification is in place, if I have to fly, I wouldn't hesitate to get on the Max. Heck, it might be safer than the other guys!
Puppycow
Penultimate Amazing
Not me. (Back in post #65 of this thread you predicted the cause would be "pilot error". I take it you've changed your mind?)
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Yep. I changed my mind about two weeks later, right around the time of this April 3 article...
https://www.seattletimes.com/busine...-737-max-may-have-failed-on-ethiopian-flight/
...which made it clear that even if the pilots had known the correct procedure, or worked it out for themselves, it is highly unlikely that they would have been able to save the aircraft anyway
ponderingturtle
Orthogonal Vector
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- 54,796
And I see how it will be dealt with, as with all things the answer is clearly to cut back on regulations even more.
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Oh dear, it looks like Boeing committed another unforgivable blunder; they changed the functionality of the stab trim switches on the 737 Max without telling anyone.
Those following the story will recall these two switches on the back right of the centre console...
On previous versions of the 737 such as the 737 NG the left switch only deactivates the yoke trim switches that pilots use to control the horizontal stabilizer, and the right switch only deactivates autopilot control of the horizontal stabiliser.
However, on the 737 MAX , this was changed so that both switches performed the same function - setting either one to cut-out would disable the yoke trim switches and the autopilot functions, such as MCAS.
This means that, in the case of a runaway trim problem, a pilot flying the 737 NG could set the right switch to cutout, to turn off autopilot trim inputs, and still have manual electrical control of the horizontal stabiliser with the trim switches on the yoke. However, if they were flying the 737 MAX, this would not work - setting either switch to cut-out turned the whole stab trim system off!
Boeing made this change without informing pilots, and without including it in the iPad "Differences Training" course or any of the training documentation.
https://www.seattletimes.com/busine...ax-cockpit-limiting-ability-to-shut-off-mcas/
Those following the story will recall these two switches on the back right of the centre console...
On previous versions of the 737 such as the 737 NG the left switch only deactivates the yoke trim switches that pilots use to control the horizontal stabilizer, and the right switch only deactivates autopilot control of the horizontal stabiliser.
However, on the 737 MAX , this was changed so that both switches performed the same function - setting either one to cut-out would disable the yoke trim switches and the autopilot functions, such as MCAS.
This means that, in the case of a runaway trim problem, a pilot flying the 737 NG could set the right switch to cutout, to turn off autopilot trim inputs, and still have manual electrical control of the horizontal stabiliser with the trim switches on the yoke. However, if they were flying the 737 MAX, this would not work - setting either switch to cut-out turned the whole stab trim system off!
Boeing made this change without informing pilots, and without including it in the iPad "Differences Training" course or any of the training documentation.
https://www.seattletimes.com/busine...ax-cockpit-limiting-ability-to-shut-off-mcas/
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catsmate
No longer the 1
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It's an excellent summary. Greed, complacency, corner cutting and lack of regulation. 346 people died to save Boeing and airlines money.
737 Max "Nowhere near close to flying again"
CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/13/business/boeing-737-max-global-approval/index.html
CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/13/business/boeing-737-max-global-approval/index.html
ponderingturtle
Orthogonal Vector
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But regulations are always bad so this must somehow be blamed on the FAA for even existing in the first place.