Posted on 03/13/2019 11:49:36 AM PDT by C19fan
Yep. My mistake. I just got off a Untied flight earlier today and my senility took charge.
“All previous grounding decisions have been fact free political decisions. “
Nope. The “facts” are that two nearly brand new planes, of the exact same model crashed in nearly identical circumstances. First flight of the day, in good weather, 13 and 6 minutes after takeoff, both had a last minute rollercoaster of climb and descent. Those are too many coincidences to pretend something is wrong. Boeing did not let any operators know about the MCAS system.
*Those* are facts. It’s pigheaded to demand everyone happily pile into them for the next 12 to 18 months and wait for a final report. There is more than enough reason to ground them until some answers are found.
“All previous grounding decisions have been fact free political decisions. “
Nope. The “facts” are that two nearly brand new planes, of the exact same model crashed in nearly identical circumstances. First flight of the day, in good weather, 13 and 6 minutes after takeoff, both had a last minute rollercoaster of climb and descent. Those are too many coincidences to pretend something is wrong. Boeing did not let any operators know about the MCAS system.
*Those* are facts. It’s pigheaded to demand everyone happily pile into them for the next 12 to 18 months and wait for a final report. There is more than enough reason to ground them until some answers are found.
Hard to keep track of all this info we’ve all digested for 40+ years, sometimes.
Still I saw one old Mustang that seemed to combine features from 1967 AND 1968.
It must have been a late ‘67 or an early ‘68.
It's the same plane but different name and software..........
The Ethiopian Air Pilot had 8000 hours. That’s very experienced. He reported that that they were experiencing flight control problems.
“There is an audible alert and the crew would need to disengage the automatic stabilizer controls using 2 switches and bring up the nose back to the climb rate. “
Not that simple. First, the pilots don’t know MCAS exists and Boeing hid it. MCAS kicks in anytime Autopilot is disengaged. So if a pilot thinks there is runaway elevator trim and disengages that, his next move is likely do disengage the autopilot. THAT will kick MCAS back into the loop again.
Boeing has a problem here. And pawning this off on pilots wont work. You mention the 200 hour First Officer, but forgot to mention the 8000 Hour Captain there beside him. That is a lot of experience.
Yeah, that’s great for flying in the US on these. I am currently in South America and can’t trust the pilots to have received the same level of training yet. It’s easy to blame the user for not being as smart as the best in the business.
I think Boeing knew they had an issue that would cause problems for the less experienced. You can’t fix stupid, but you also can’t expect every pilot in the world to be top gun material.
Boeing has a profit vs human life cost calculation that they use. This may be case where they need to evaluate their weightings.
Unfortunately, I've known pilots with twice those hours who are no longer with us because they failed to pay attention to what was going on, or forgot how to react to the simplest of situations, or were simply reacting in a wrong fashion to a given situation - as they had been for years - and it finally caught up with them. Stall avoidance and recovery is the number one issue pounded into your head as a pilot. Autopilot systems can be overridden and/or overpowered. Rule number one is when something isn't right, YOU fly the airplane - you don't depend upon it to fly itself.
On the flip side, I'm amazed that this much attention is given to this issue. Commercial aviation often gets a pass, or a wink and a nod on safety issues. On the other hand, General Aviation aircraft owners like myself are routinely issued warnings and Airworthiness Directives (ADs) everytime a bug splat damages the paint. I bet I have enough FAA notices to fill a Houston phone book just on my plane alone.
I’m sure he does as the company is mainly to blame for the deficiencies in proper training protocols.
LOL!!!
That might help a little until the refueling crew arrives.
And pawning this off on pilots wont work. You mention the 200 hour First Officer, but forgot to mention the 8000 Hour Captain there beside him. That is a lot of experience.
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True. Far too much is being made of the FO having just 200 hours, that really means nothing. Flight time means very little in regards to pilot skills, quality of that time and training means a lot more, and in this case as noted the Captain was an 8000 hr guy. The european system routinely has 200 hr guys flying FO on heavies after having graduated one of the airline training academies. I was a Navy flight instructor, now I’m an airline pilot, and I’ll take any of my 200 hr. students over some guy with 5000 hrs putting around in a cessna 152.
It’s pointless to speculate on the causes of this accident until the investigations are complete and the reports released. Regulators with inside knowledge will sometimes make decisions like temporarily grounding a type if a specific problem is indicated by the initial investigation, that’s only prudent and safe. I don’t know, and no one here does either, what the FAA and various national agencies are privy to about this crash. It’s usually better to err on the side of caution in these matters.
I hear a lot of opinions along the lines of “they just need to train their pilots better” etc. Quite frankly this is a dumb position to take. While better training is always a good thing, you don’t want an airplane that needs Chuck Yeager on his best day to safely operate, you want an airplane that a mediocre pilot having a bad day can safely operate. IF there is a systems problem with this airplane (and I’m not saying there is) then it needs to be modified so we don’t have to rely upon a procedural workaround to catch it when it malfunctions. Something that has the potential to malfunction at 200’ on takeoff and cause a catastrophe needs to be fixed so we don’t have to rely upon that mediocre pilot flying at 3 a.m. who is going through a divorce catching it in order to prevent an accident. We’re shooting for 100% safety here, saying suck it up and train your pilots better so they can catch a flawed system malfunctioning isn’t good enough. Eventually it’ll happen at a time when even the best pilot won’t catch it.
Several days ago, there was a report that satellite data was indicating that the two 737 Max 8 accidents might have some similarities. A follow-on report said that the data was insufficient to support such a conclusion.
While no one has said what satellite data they were talking about, they were probably referring to Aireon’s ADS-B space-base GlobalBeacon. This system uses GPS and a network of 66 low altitude satellites. The claim that the network now has a 100% coverage world wide with a report rate of 1 per minute. When first launched, the report period was once every 15 minutes. Performance of this system and if it was used by the Ethiopian airplane.
The decision made by the President today was reportedly based on a update with satellite data. These upgrades were provided by Boeing and another company (Aireon?). I guessing that Aireon had better data that is currently being provided to their customers. Additionally, I’m sure that they could refine the raw data to get better and more frequent position location data in X, Y, and Z, especially Z (altitude). That information might well have persuaded the President to ground the fleet and that was probably a good decision.
Importantly, the two black boxes are still in limbo. They were sent to Germany who couldn’t retrieve the data because these are new types of recorders. The boxes are now in route to France, but some have said that France will have the same problem and the data can’t be retrieved until the boxes are sent to Washington. That data should provide confirmation of Aireon’s data. The black box data may also show another problem, pilot error, mechanical failure, or something else. Way too early to be guessing, but that has become very fashionable.
What I mean is that though the commander may be “controlling” it, he’s really just telling it where to go with the controls, but the computer makes constant micro-adjustments to the controls to make the shuttle go where the commander wants it to. So, yes, it’s manual instructions, but the instructions are read by the computer that then constantly micro (or macro) adjusts control surfaces to cause it to follow the path the pilot desires. It is said to have the aerodynamics of a brick, but it has enough lift to, if guided properly, touch down in a way that does not destroy it.
This was my impression, anyway, and this is what I read back in the early 80’s. So my memory could be faulty.
After the Crash of the DC-10 in Chicago I was talking to a Continental DC-10 Mechanic.
He said they all did the same procedure using the Forklift. He basically said it could have happened to any Airline flying the DC-10 but American got “lucky”.
If not for the Shift Change leaving the Engine / Pylon resting on the Forklift, those Passengers wouldn’t have lost their lives. Just one little thing and ...
I wonder if they have changed the whole routine, whereby NOBODY leaves a forklift alone during shift changes.
I am sure they must have changed protocols.
But it is probably not talked about.
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