I’d said in prior threads that it’ll come out that engineers became 2nd to managers. There’s just no way that multiple levels of engineers and architects didn’t see a problem.
This was a business decision, likely withheld deliberately from the CEO - thee problem never reached his desk and it should have. Either that or he is lying.
Somebody should be going to prison.
“ikely withheld deliberately from the CEO”
He’s lying. Boeing micromanages all the way to the top. Daily standups with executives. There is absolutely no way Denise didn’t know engineers did not approve of MCAS.
The Angle of Attack sensors were miscalibrated on both flights and the problems were never reported or fixed by the maintenance people. Neither plane should have been allowed to fly before this was repaired.
Boeing underestimated the probability of AOA failure and did not assess the software risk correctly. The MCAS was a software tweak to the flight control system to make the yoke pressure feel the same on the 737 Max as it did on the 737 in certain unusual regions of the flight envelope such as high angle of attack. It was not an anti-stall system as reported by the media. They added the MCAS so that pilots certified on the 737 would not need to get another type cert for the MAX.
Under normal conditions it would not even be activated but when the AoA sensor misreported a high angle of attack at relatively low airspeed it kicked in to lower the nose by applying electric stabilizer trim.
The flight crews did not recognize the runaway stabilizer trim emergency that resulted quickly enough to switch off the electric trim and regain manual control of the aircraft. In the Indonesian flight they actually did switch it off but then switched it back on when they couldn’t get control at high speed. This is a violation of training discipline which teaches never to switch something back on once it is off.
The email messages regarding the flight simulator software had nothing to do with the actual flight director MCAS software that was onboard the aircraft.
Piling on Boeing and making the CEO a blood sacrifice may make the politicians and media feel like they are doing something but they only serve to scare and misinform the flying public. Dennis Muilenburg should have stood up to the horse whipping better but he has to play his part. When that idiot Senator said he would rather walk than fly on the 737 Max Muilenburg should have said he would fly on it, he would have his wife and kids fly on it, and he would be surprised if any Boeing employee would have the slightest concern to fly on a MAX.