Posted on 03/13/2019 2:50:42 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
(CNN)US pilots who fly the Boeing 737 Max have registered complaints about the way the jet has performed in flight, according to a federal database accessed by CNN.
In one of the complaints, a captain reported an autopilot anomaly which led to a brief nose-down situation -- where the front of the aircraft pointed down, according to the federal database. In another complaint, a first officer reported that the aircraft pitched nose down after the autopilot was engaged during departure. The autopilot was then disconnected and flight continued to its destination, according to the database.
lthough the data doesn't identify the pilots or their airlines, two US carriers fly the 737 Max 8: American Airlines and Southwest.
Extraordinary worldwide attention has been focused on the jet -- Boeing's biggest-selling airliner -- after Sunday's crash of a new Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max 8, minutes after takeoff from Addis Abba, which killed all 157 people on board. Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 was the second deadly crash of the same new plane type within five months. The crash of Lion Air Flight 610 shortly after takeoff from Jakarta last October killed all 189 people on board.
It's very early in the investigation of the Ethiopian Airlines crash and information from the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder, which have been recovered from the crash site, has not yet been analyzed. Because of that, it's too soon to know if direct evidence exists linking the two plane crashes. On Tuesday, Ethiopian Airlines' CEO Tewolde GebreMariam told CNN's Richard Quest the pilot said he "had flight control problems" immediately before the 737 Max 8 crashed Sunday.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
I have an idea!! Why not FLY THE PLANE instead of letting the autopilot do it? Did you all forget the Four Fundamentals of Flight?
Stall
Spin
Crash
Burn.
time for some bleach bit.
I always enjoy it when my autopilot suddenly decides to pitch the airplane into a nose-down configuration.
“I have an idea!! Why not FLY THE PLANE instead of letting the autopilot do it?”
That was why the Asiana Alrlines plane crashed in San Francisco a few years ago. The Glideslope was out of commission and the pilots didn’t know how to fly well enough to land the plane without it.
The autopilot was then disconnected and flight continued to its destination, according to the database.
...
I’m going to guess this is why the crashes have been with foreign airlines. American pilots know how to fly and don’t hesitate to disconnect the autopilot.
Funny...actually this pitch down issue only happens when under Manual Control.
I have an idea!! Why not FLY THE PLANE instead of letting the autopilot do it? Did you all forget the Four Fundamentals of Flight?
Stall
Spin
Crash
Burn.
The problem is that if there is a malfunction onboard during flight the Pilot and co-pilot are not trained well enough to figure out how to get the A/V corrected in time..
It would be more useful to know if there are any similarities or patterns in the pilot complaints regarding the 737 MAX - not just a couple cherry picked out. It would also be a better story if there were some comparison of the number and nature of complaints relative to other new/revised aircraft roll-outs at about the same total number of flight hours with the new aircraft.
Without this we have no idea if the several issues cited in the article represent a big deal for an aircraft type with 46K hours, or if these are in line with other roll-outs, or maybe there are even fewer, indicating the MAX is an exceptionally good aircraft. But of course that wouldn't sell papers or generate clicks...
From what I've learned of the MCAS system yeah, there may be an issue with how it decides to activate, possibly related to being too trusting of faulty sensors and no way to convince it to stop short of pulling breakers. There's probably some fault with Boeing, the FAA, and carriers for not getting the word out about the MCAS system until after the first crash. But ultimately it seems like the MCAS system cycles inputs in, and the pilot(s) can counter act them. Right now it seems to me the ultimate blame would be with the pilots who let the system do it's thing while they got distracted running checklists or trying to figure out the problem. First and foremost you fly the aircraft. If you have to keep pulling back pressure on the yoke, you keep pulling back pressure on the yoke and you keep the beast in the air.
“the data doesn’t identify the pilots or their airlines”
Anything on Yelp about it?
I read the same thing. The MCAS system only works when the plane is being flown manually. This is another media attempt to link any anomaly with the MCAS system.
That was (is) a very entertaining book. I love the test flight sequence. IIRC “...there, I’ve just recreated the sequence of events...plane can handle it fine...”
I’m not an experienced pilot. I’m an experienced doctor.
But this reminds me, a lot, of the claims made for the electronic health record’s “diagnosis assist” and “decision support” functions.
If you know how to fly (or Doctor) without it, when it f***s up, you can power through it. If you learned on it, it’s the passengers (or the patient) who are f****ed.
“the pilots didn’t know how to fly well enough to land the plane without it.”
That was a terrible display of flying. Cultural barriers, (within their culture) and always relying on the Auto Pilot, meeting on short final to runway 28 SFO.
The dreaded “visual approach,” a killer if you can’t fly.
.. “always enjoy it when my autopilot suddenly decides to pitch the airplane into a nose-down configuration.”
The best is to just be aggressive in the level off from a high rate of climb. Floats the pens right out of the pockets....
You never let “George,” the auto pilot steal a landing from you.
“The dreaded “visual approach,” a killer if you can’t fly.”
Yes, another FReeper with whom I am connected outside FR, sent me an e-mail from a former United pilot who, upon retirement went to South Korea where he trained pilots for both KAL and Asiana. He was fired because he refused to pass students who could not master basics of flight by way of standard cockpit instruments ( the one’s that are now secondary to the “glass cockpits” and the computer support). He also indicated that Asian “culture” was largely responsible for the problem. It’s almost as bad as today’s cheating on college entrance exams, but with the added bit about being able to take other people to their graves by reason of your complete incompetence as a pilot, instead of just flunking out because you’re stupid. These guys become “high time” pilots, flying ten or more hours at a stretch between continents, while their autopilots fly the planes for them. Then when they show up at an airport, their expectation is that they will be able to do a coupled approach and really never have to assume control of the a/c until it’s rolling out. The $hit hit the fan with Asiana at SF when the automated approach system was inop. I saw the profile of that plane’s glideslope, and it was never stable. The local TV channel 2 got snookered into reporting the pilot’s “names” as Wee Tu Lo, Sum Ting Wong, Bang Ding Owe and Ho Lee Fuk. Trouble was, those names were really apropos given the gruesome outcome.
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